Past perfect, present tense

Essaouira

2012-03-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

There were several guys we met in our trip to Sahara who by coincidence were londoners. Another coincidence was that all of them were planning on going to Essauouira the next day just like us, a little relaxing town by the ocean. It was good to have a nice company for the rest of the trip.

Essauouira was nothing like busy Marrakech and we found it very surprising that nobody bothered to drag us into their shops to sell us their goods. We did however some souvenir "shopping" before leaving the town. I even got myself a bracelet for which I was bargaining for almost 30 minutes. I had a fixed price in my head and I didn't wanna go above, so I had to really push the seller to sell it for the price I wanted. I think the seller did enjoy bargaining even though he said I was making a cous-cous in his head. This is apparently a widely-used expression in Morroco about people who give you some trouble. For me all this bargaining process was really exhausting and stressful and funny thing is that I don't even wear that bracelet as it doesn't match any of my cloths.

In couple of hours we pretty much saw all the main attractions the town had to offer. In the evening we ended up in a small restaurant that was ran by a French woman who was as well too relaxed about her clients and joined some tables for a drink. She kept drinking and talking, so it took a while until she took our order but in the end the food was very good and the atmosphere lovely. This evening we were celebrating my birthday, and I even got a piece of chocolate cake with candle accompanied by Happy Birthday song. We drank Moroccan wine. They actually do produce wine, but only for export. Wine was good and we all had plenty. And as if this wasn't enough we thought of going to some club afterwards. We stopped some young local guy to ask for directions and to our surprise he himself was going to the night club and we just followed him. When we entered the club it was all about males and just about 4-5 other females who were prostitutes. We ordered some drinks and after having some I didn't care much about the dodgy people around me and danced until the early morning. It was a good fun and another nice day to remember.

Some picture from Essaouira

Piano

2012-03-03T09:11:00.001-08:00

3 weeks ago I bought myself a piano, something I always wanted to do. It's been almost 13 years since I was playing last time in Lithuania and the fact that I used to play before and now can't even play something reasonably easy just didn't seem right. So here I am now, an owner of a brand new Yamaha YDP141 electronic piano, which is now my new drug.

Trip to Sahara

2012-03-03T08:39:00.000-08:00

Our Saraha desert trip was panned even 2 months before we arrived to Morocco. I read about this particular tour on tripadvisor which had some excellent reviews and contacted the organizer to book a tour. He siad it's fin, however I should make a deposit of 150 Euro into his account to secure places in the car. It felt very dodgy at first when I was asked to transfer the money to somebody's account and I pretty much gave up on that tour, but read some good reviews of other people doing the same thing and gave it a go. Turned out to be all well. The organizer met us on a agreed place in Marrakech and we all went to the desert. Whew!

The trip took 3 days as the desert was very far away from Marrakech. We stopped every 30 minutes to enjoy nice views and listen to the guide. Our first night we stayed in a hotel which was very lovely. We had an incredibly delicious dinner near the fireplace and a very beautiful view of the mountains from our window.

The next day we continued our trip to the desert and in the late afternoon we finally reached it. There were already camels and 3 berbers waiting for us. Berbers are people who originally descended from North Africa. I was told that 70% of Moroccans are berbers with the rest being Arabs. Those guys helped us to sit on the camels and in 1 hour of ride we reached the tents where we were supposed to stay overnight. By the time we arrived it was almost freezing and everyone put all the cloths they brought with them. The sun was about to sat down and we we all headed up the closest mountain to see it. It was a little cloudy, but still very beautiful. When we got back to the tents berbers already made us dinner, traditional cous-cous with tagine. Just after the dinner berbers told us to go outside and see the moon rise. I had no idea that moon rise is not less spectacular than sunrise.

Then after sitting around fire place and listening to berber songs and music we all went to sleep. Actually it wasn't exactly the case, bucause nobody slept that night. It was freezing, and even numerous blankets that berbers gave to each of us could not warm anyone. So we just lay there until almost 5 a.m. when berbers "woke us up" to see the sunrise and take a camel ride back to the car which would take us back to Marrakech.

Some pictures of the trip in a slideshow

Atlas mountains

2012-01-20T14:52:00.000-08:00

Initially our exciting plan was to climb the Toubcal, the highest peak in the Atlas mountains and Northern Africa. Later the plans had to change because of lack of time, as we normally would need 2 days to climb the peak. We didn't have a spare day but still decided to dedicate a day for a mountain hike.

I wasn't particularly physically active for the last few months so hiking to the top was very challenging and exhausting for me. But it was worth it. Views were very beautiful and the weather was good and sunny. My two very fun colleagues from work who also traveled with us to Morocco also joined us for the hike. On the way back we decided to take a different route from the one we took on the way up, which was a big mistake. We ended up passing by a little village trying to get down the mountain. We had no choice but to climb through people's back yards which was quite embarrassing. Locals didn't mind and found it funny that 4 strangers were trying to climb their steep yard in order to get down. They, surely, would take a different route.

My experience in hammam

2012-01-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

In one of the evenings after coming back from a long tiring day in the mountains I decided to go to a public bath, what Moroccans call hammam. It's a part of Moroccan tradition to go to their local hammams from time to time and I was tempted to try it as well.

I was told that there were 2 types of hammams - for local people and for tourists, which I thought was not serious and decided to try the one for locals, just to know the real thing. I was completely unprepared for what would happen. At the entrance I was given 2 empty buckets and was told to take off my cloths. I took the buckets and went into a big steamy room. All women inside were half naked and most of them sat on the floor in front of buckets full of water. They all seemed to really enjoy themselves, they talked, laughed basically behaved as if they would casually sit in some cafeteria or a pub, only difference- they were naked. They also did scrub each other with some sort of bathing gloves. I noticed that all of them had it. Apart from me who had no idea what to do. I think I never felt so awkward before. I had no clue what to do. Neither I can ask them because I don't speak their language, neither I have any glove to do that scrubbing. So I just awkwardly stood by the wall in front of 2 buckets of water while everyone else was curiously watching me and smiling.

Then suddenly one of local women came to me and said in French (most of the locals speak French) she is going to help me. That's all I understood with my really bad knowledge of French but felt really relieved. She was my saviour! She asked me to show her my bathing things and soon discovered I didn't have a scrubbing glove. She went away and brought one from somewhere. She put some black liquid, probably soap as it smelled like one, on the glove and started to massage me with that glove so strong that it even hurt. She told me later to lie on the floor to she could wash my back and legs. So I did! I found that really weird, but decided not to interrupt. After about 10 minutes of scrubbing she poured all the water that was in the buckets to wash out the soap. At that point my experience was over and the lady asked me to tip her. I happily agreed, dried myself and left the hammam. Even though this was probably the weirdest and awkward 30 minutes of my life I still would recommend this to everyone who wants to experience something different. Besides, scrubbing was so strong and intense that I think I never felt so clean before.

Marrakech

2012-01-16T12:51:00.000-08:00

We just got back and our trip to Morocco was awesome. We started in Marrakech, one of the most busiest cities in Morocco. The main tourist attractions of Marrakech are situated in medina which is so called old town surrounded by medieval wall.

I believed that Marrakech was all about medina and the city seemed to be very old-fashioned and undeveloped. Later I discovered there is much more of Marrakech outside the wall where buildings look very different and modern. But most of the time we hanged out in medina.

Hostels in Morocco deserve a special attention cause they aren't just like any other hostels we are used to but rather are riads. The definition of riad is that it's a traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden or courtyard. One amusing thing is that for a very affordable (sometimes really cheap) price you could stay in a what used to be palace. We did it 2 times.

Our first hostel-riad was not as good looking as the second one, but it had an amazing atmosphere because of its amazing hosts. I heard that Moroccans were famous for their hospitality and 2 guys who ran the hostel even exceeded my expectations. They were amazing. They taught us how to cook cous-cous, kept making for us fresh Moroccan sweet mint tea, sang songs and played drums in the evenings. We didn't need to look for any entertainment in Marrakech, it was all in our hostel.

Marrakech medina is very colorful place, full of souks (markets) selling leather goods, spices, food and all other imaginable things. The thing that pleasantly surprised me about Marrakech, and Morocco in general, is that most of the people were wearing traditional cloths. So all those souks with colorful goods and Moroccans in national cloths walking by or selling goods were just perfect for taking beautiful pictures, however it wasn't always that easy. Moroccans don't like to be on the picture. Whenever they would spot me with my camera they would either walk away or cover their face. Once I even received quite an aggressive remark to stop using my camera. But nevertheless I still used it quite a lot and have probably around 100 pictures of Marrakech souks.

There is a huge square in the middle of medina called Jemaa el-Fnaa. It's the biggest square in African continent and is very lively all day and night long. I loved passing through it because every 10 meters you could buy a big glass of an absolutely divine fresh orange juice. Price for the juice was fixed in every places of the square (just 0.40 Euro per glass) with no need to bargain. We basically drank it whenever we were passing by the square.

La Traviala

2012-01-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

Oh my! What a performance I was at yesterday! Me and Andrejs went to see La Traviata opera in the Royal Opera House. I was extremely pleased with the performance. There are no words to describe my love to this opera.
The opera house was very spacious, with beautiful Christmas decorations, filled with fancy looking people drinking champagne. Definitely the place I would wanna visit again. There was a live music orchestra, absolutely non-boring acts and very good opera singers. The opera was in Italian and there were subtitles running above the scene for those who don't understand Italian singing. People were getting pretty emotional. All around me I kept hearing some sobbing. The story was very sad but for me personally after watching "Madam Butterfly" no other opera will make me as sad.

Absolutely by accident I discovered that Mei Sin with her husband were there at the same time, and we spotted them sitting on the other side of amphitheater.

New Year Resolutions

2012-01-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

This year it seems like whomever I ask is giving me a long list of resolutions for the new year. Those typically include exercising, starting the gym gym, eating healthy, learning a new language and so on, and so on... They all actually are pretty much the same, as everyone wants to look good, healthy and smart.

After a few days of holidays I came back to work and went to my usual food place Pret for lunch. I typically grab a salad, as it's my favorite food out of all they've got. I normally go for lunch around or after 2 p.m. which is quite late but I never have any problems with buying salads, as it isn't anybodies first choice for a meal. And guess what! Today salad was gone. Not just that! All 6 types of salad were gone! Everything else apart from salad was available. If people will keep up with their resolutions by eating healthy and buying salads instead of other meals what will I be left with?! The only consolation I can think of is that statistically people who are making new year resolutions have 60% of failure. Nah...not really, I am not that evil and that' not how i feel. I just hope Pret will manage salad demands in a better way!

My last cigarette

2011-12-20T14:49:00.000-08:00

I feel great today! Today is a memorable day! The day when I stopped smoking. Some would just say that it doesn't count as I have never really smoked heavily. That's true, however I could never call myself a non-smoker. I was smoking when I was at school, when I was a student and I practically never refused if someone would invite me for a cigarette. I love smoking, smoking is great! It feels relaxing, cool and people who never smoked have no idea what a great pleasure they are missing. The only problem with it that it's addictive, expensive, you smell afterwords not to mention harm for the health. But I thought that eliminating cigarettes from my life completely would be too cruel, and I'd better limit the amount of cigarettes I am smoking rather than getting rid of them which is not gonna work anyway. So I set myself some certain rules that would help me enjoy smoking and not to get too addicted.

The rule was that I should smoke only 10 cigarettes every 3 month. Sounded like a good plan, however didn't quite work out. At the beginning it all went just fine, and for a couple of months I just smoked those packs of ten. At some point I realized that I didn't even feel how the pack has finished and would need to face 3 months waiting time to get another one! Then I decided that probably buying a 20 cigarettes pack would be a better solution as they would last longer and it's only 10 cigarettes more! The pack of 20 however would always finish faster than I wanted and again I would face 3 months of waiting when it's finally time to buy a pack again... So I introduced another cheating rule that I should smoke every 2 months now instead of 3. But that also didn't quite work as my desire to smoke was stronger then the rules. So for the last few days I was smoking whenever I felt like, and I felt like smoking them one after another. I also realized that it was getting nowhere, and if I don't wanna be addicted I should stop once and for all. So here I am, all firm and decided! I am never smoking again! Just to make sure I am definitely giving up I bought a supporting book called "Easy Way to Stop Smoking" by Allen Carr, which has some excellent reviews in amazon.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Allen-Carrs-Easy-Stop-Smoking/dp/014103940X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324420995&sr=8-1

On the way to work

2011-12-18T16:05:00.000-08:00

The are many cool things about the area where we live. One of it is the location! It's close to my/Andrejs work as it takes me only 20 minutes to get to work from door to door (car to the tube's station + tube ride + on foot). I decided that one day I should try reaching my work on foot. I left home at 8 and were in the office at around 9 which was about right of what googlemaps predicted. On the way I took some photos of our area, later of the Tower Bridge, which is on the way to my work and which I need to cross in order to get to the opposite side of the river where my office is. The journey was very lovely and it's also a part of National Trail called the Thames path. That day I decided I am going to do walk to work at least ones every week. If only I were as motived now as I was that day....

Children Christmas Party

2011-12-18T15:25:00.000-08:00

It's just one of those days when things go wrong from the very beginning. Mark was supposed to have his Christmas party with local kids from our area. First it was just bad planning of the day and we were running late to the party. The place was unknown to us, so we were not 100% sure about the location. We ended up entering a completely wrong children's party which apparently, was hosted at the same time but in a very close distance from the place where our party was. It didn't strike us immediately that we are in a wrong place. People at that party, though, didn't show any interest in us, so after standing awkwardly at the entrance we figured out it probably wasn't the right party and left.

After a while we found the right place where hosts introduced us around and showed us a dining room saying that it's all self service. We didn't wait long and filled in our plates very soon since we were pretty hungry and went back to the common room where all people were hanging out. I found it a little strange that we were the only ones that were holding plates and eating, but I thought it's probably because everyone else already ate. We arrived late after all. In about half an hour of time the host said that she now welcomes everyone to the dining room to enjoy the food there! What?! Hasn't everyone already eaten? Oh nooo!!! Nobody did, it was just us! :)))

Forgetting this embarrassing moment the party went very well. I was very impressed by how well the event was organized taking into account that it was done by only 2 women who also did cooking for that many people (probably around 35-40 I'd say). There were games and songs, Santa with presents, surprises, decorations and great food. I panic when I have more than 2 guests in my house, what about taking care of 35!

Christmas time

2011-12-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

Can't really justify my absence from blogspot. But I will try to catch up, especially as more holidays are coming and I will have more free time.

A week ago I went to work Christmas party which was a fabulous event and I only wish I had more parties like that. This time it was in West London beautiful countryside hotel with the overnight stay. I only drove there in the evening and unlike others who had lots of time to explore the area, play golf, go to spa and do countryside rides. Nevertheless I promised myself to come back one day with Mark and Andrejs to have a complete relaxing weekend break.

My Christmas shopping is almost done. Thank you God for inventing internet! I am so used to online shopping that even buying little everyday things in a usual store seems a little weird. I am not really proud of it, as it makes me be less physically active, but it's just so convenient!

Mark has also had his Christmas Party in the nursery where he with other kids was visited by a clown and Santa. I was quite impressed by Mark's independent behavior in the nursery. At home he behaves very demaning and requires lots of attention especially when it comes to playing with toys.

Seville

2011-11-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

Mom was visiting us in London for couple of with 1 week of holidays in between when we went to Southern Spain. For the last 10 years my mom kept saying that it has always been her dream to go there. I don't know why she didn't go there before, but I didn't mind booking flights and going there with her. Seville was stunning! Apart from 2 main top things to see Seville's Cathedral and Alcazar palace there also were many other highlights. I didn't expect from this city to be so beautiful.

Seville is said to be the hottest town in Spain, and even in the beginning of October temperature there was most of the time above 30 and we had follow local siesta tradition of taking a nap during hottest hours of the day. Before going to Southern Spain I thought that tradition of siesta is something really weird and only followed by lazy people. I totally get it now as it is essential for survival in such unbearably hot towns like Seville.

Food was good, especially tapas and sangria, but not as cheap as we expected. Also I was quite surprised by local coffee which I expected to be just like Italian, however it was very different. Typical local coffee is very strong served in a glass and contains 3 times quantity of Italian espresso. I probably wouldn't drink this coffee more than ones a day.

One thing I think very remarkable for Seville as it has a completely crazy narrow and confusing old town streets. Old town of Seville is really big but following the map didn't help much either, because most of the streets are so small that they aren't shown on the map and are so much alike and so short and curvy and it always seems like you have already been there. During our 3 day stay we got lost on the same streets again and again.

Dulwich Picture Gallery

2011-11-05T16:44:00.000-07:00

Logged in to blogspot to write some updates about some events, and found this completely new to try looks as well as completely different blog management interface. Feels a little weird, but I am sure I will find it more convenient after a while.

Today we visited Dulwich Art Gallery which had an exhibition of 7 Canadian painters, called the Group of Seven. There were some interesting facts about those painters that I managed to read during my short stay in the gallery and there is plenty of information about them online. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Seven_(artists) We were asked to leave the gallery for Mark's "misbehavior", so couldn't really take proper insight. In such cases I always envy people who came to see exhibition with no kids, so they can completely dedicate their time for watching pictures and reading all the information about it or just quietly sitting and drinking coffee with some nice cake in some nice place, instead of worrying for every step your kid is making. Mark certainly can't be blamed for running around the gallery, and trying to touch security ropes, cause that's what kids of his age do and trying to explain to him that museum is the place where people quietly enjoy what they see doesn't work. So instead of spending an hour, we spent around 10 minutes in the gallery and much more outside it as there was a nice park. All the paintings were about Canadian nature which reminded nature of Baltic countries except it looked much more wild. Oh, and also had mountains.

Iguassu Waterfalls

2011-09-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

A few days ago we met Bruno's sister Isis and her boyfriend Danilo who were visiting London for a few days. They both are very lovely people and it was very good to catch up. Made me also remember I haven't processed my numerous Brazilian pictures from Iguassu waterfalls. The fact that there were 450 pictures from just 2 days stay in waterfalls town made me too un-enthusiastic to do anything about them. Today I found some energy and time and deleted most of them by leaving just about 200 which are so much more easy to manage.

Iguassu waterfalls are the most impressive waterfalls I have ever seen. The first day we saw them from Brazilian side which had wonderful views, the weather was sunny, and we even took a boat trip which took us under the falls. Experience of that was something not to forget - absolutely wonderful views when you are near the falls, and absolutely terrifying when you are under them. Our boat made a short turn under the stream of water from the falls and I couldn't see anything, and felt the heavy stream of water coming down my head and only wished for this to be over. The boat did it 3 times! Everyone seemed to be well afterwards apart from one woman who managed to lose her golden tooth, but made everyone laugh when she was telling about it with her toothless smile and holding a golden tooth in her hand.

The next day we went to Argentinean side of the falls. We needed a visa for that, but it didn't take us more than 20 minutes to get it directly at the border. This day was very rainy, and we had to ware raincoats. Argentinean side of waterfalls has less beautiful views than Brazilian side, but certainly not less impressive. This time you could get really close to the falls by following the platform path that would bring you right above the streams of water. One part of the falls we saw that day was called Devil's Throat, owning such name not without a reason. The power and amount of falling water is so huge that we couldn't see anything because of raising streams of it. It also was really loud.

When we were in Foz di Iguassu (a town next to the waterfalls) we also visited birds park which had varieties of different south american birds. We could come very close to some of them. I was really impressed by one which was completely of red color. So so red!

The last thing we did in Argentina was lunch in "all you can eat" with very various and delicious food. This was the last lunch we had all together before flying back home the next day.

More pictures

Go Ape!

2011-09-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

Go Ape was awesome! We went there with Andrejs collegue Kirill and Valdemaras on a bank holiday, which also was the day our wedding anniversary. Go ape is all about climbing challenging paths that are built in the forest. It's all perfectly safe as you are tighten with equipment to the robes along all the forest paths, just like in via ferrata. Most of them followed by Tarzan jumps from the top of the tree down. I had a perfect day!

A real fan

2011-08-29T13:41:00.000-07:00

Mark is a huge fan of children tv-cartoon-series "Thomas the Tank Engine". Not only he sees them every morning, but he also has several kinds of toy trains from the episodes (I think now we are getting close to owning the whole collection of them, I am loosing count), he remembers each name of it, plays with them every day. He takes them for a walk, feeds them, builds garages for them and even puts them all to sleep before going to sleep himself. A week ago Anna bought him a shirt with his favorite hero - train Thomas. Now he wouldn't let u take it off! First thing in the morning while dressing up he demands the Thomas shirt to be put on him, and don't even try to suggest something else. Today before Mark's sleep time he wouldn't even let me to put his usual pyjamas on and insisted on sleeping in Thomas shirt. It took time to convince him that the shirt is also very tired and needs some rest from Mark. Mark stared at me with disbelieve but later after a long conversation I managed it and he let me put on his pyjamas but made sure his favorite shirt sleeps right next to him.

Kew Gardens

2011-08-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

I was startled when I saw entrance price for Kew Gardens. It was 13 pounds per person and if I knew the price in advance I probably wouldn't come and would be wrong. It's expensive but I think worth every penny (if you are used to English prices:)). We went there for almost the whole day with Mark and Andrejs. The territory of Kew Gardens is absolutely huge, and it is also very beautiful and very well preserved. The things I liked most were 2 big orangeries, Chinese pagoda and also the Treetop walkway. Treetop way is around 20 meters high and lets you to walk above the trees and see the whole parks area. It all was very nice experience of walking so high and seeing the area from the top, but the scary part for me was when this whole construction started swaying in the wind, I could barely walk without holding to the railings. My photos aren't particularly well describing the beauty of Kew gardens, as it looks so much better in reality.

Kent

2011-08-24T15:03:00.001-07:00

Kent is a big and lovely county in south of England. A colleague of mine who is a resident in this are for several years knows the area pretty well and invited me to see some nice places together. She drove me through small villages, fields, local pubs serving food from local farms, and showed me something I was seeking long time - lavender fields, which was all really lovely and beautiful. We entered a shop near those fields selling different kinds of products made from lavender. They even had food made of it! I bought a cake made of lavender (just to be clear: lavender was not the only ingredient) and gooseberries jam that included lavender. This was just out of curiosity. I love lavender smell, but taste of it in food doesn't really make food tastier.

Stand-Up comedy

2011-08-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

One of the cool things I would recommend to do in London is to go and see some Stand-Up comedy show. I remember first time when I visited one of the shows I understood only half of the jokes. The reason of that was a combination of not receipting English well, being non-familiar with culture/habits/geography of regions of the country. Yep, nothing else! After couple of years I am in a better position now and I very much enjoy stand up comedy nights. This is all about sitting in a room/theater and seeing different comedians perform. The most important rule for me is: never sit in the front row cause this is where you get attacked by comedians most. They would ask what you think of what they just said, ask about your personal life, profession or ask any uncomfortable question you would not be ready to answer. They certainly would make sure they make a good joke out of what you said and this would bring the whole auditorium to laugh. That's why the first rows in London's comedy shows are usually empty or filled in with tourists who have no clue.

Most of the time tickets to good comedy clubs are sold out by the time you get to the ticket office, so we end up seeing less popular shows. This is how we discovered several comedian shows near Leicester Square- the place most popular for comedy nights. Last week by not being able to get into the show we wanted we were approached by flayers deliverer and offered to buy tickets to some infamous amateur comedy. Of cause he did not mention they were amateur, we found that out as soon as we entered little cellar room where the performance took place. Jokes were good most of the time and I think I didn't laugh as much for a while. For me they are a very good way to relieve stress after busy week and get some positive emotions.

Picture of that day

London Zoo

2011-08-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

I no longer know what to think. Our booked hot air balloon flight got cancelled again "because of weather conditions." It's absolutely calm, cloudless hot day in London and it seems it simply can't be more perfect day for the flight. How much better could it possibly become??? The balloon flight was supposed to be a fun present for our wedding anniversary last year that is now turning into something hopeless. We were asked to rebook the flight for the other day, which is another issue since they have all days booked out 1 month in advance. In the best case we will fly in September, but this month is nothing like July and August which are the warmest in UK. I absolutely can't wait to fly the air balloon, but months and months of facing miserable cancellations makes me frustrated :(

Last week we went to the London Zoo. We took there Mark last time in May when they had a new penguin show and it was sort of a big hit in London and probably every Londoner especially those with kids visited it. The show was nothing at all special with untrained penguins walking around swimming and making some sounds occasionally. But the zoo itself was very much worth visiting and we could easily spend all day there as it was so much to do. First of all the zoo is huge, it occupies very big territory of the Regents Park and has a variety of animals. Last week went there again, this time with some colleagues of mine and Mark loved it, especially after getting a lot of attention from adults. He was more active than usual.

Traffic misery

2011-07-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

Our trip with Andrejs and Valdemaras to a little English town by the sea called Rye resulted in a walk in a nearby Greenwich. I was never so miserably stuck in traffic before when car was literally moving 2 meters a minute. I don't know whose idea was to organize bicycle competition on one of the most busy roads on the weekend when the temperature is 27 and everyone want to get out to the seaside! Why?! why? why they had to do that?! So after spending 1 hour in traffic without any progress we gave up and went back to spend some time in Greenwich. Our initial plan was to walk in a completely different park on an opposite side of the Thames, but as soon as we came there we discovered there was a walking tunnel under the river that would lead us to Greenwich. There is nothing exciting about the tunnel apart from the fact that it is very old, long and spooky.

There is a free entrance Maritime museum which we haven't visited before and a very old market, which had lots of art and food stalls. We were very hungry so we were mostly after food, which was really different and delicious.

Norfolk

2011-07-31T02:47:00.000-07:00

Norfolk is a region in the North-East England which is remarkably beautiful during summer because of it's blooming lavender fields. Since last year I kept thinking of going there, and last Sunday I convinced Andrejs to take a day trip to that region.

In fact Norfolk region is the biggest producer of lavender in UK so it definitely has lots of beautiful lavender fields somewhere, however by taking a suggested route by our Eyewitness travel guide we couldn't find them, which was quite disappointing. We only came across a mini lavender field near some tourist lavender shop.

We drove to a little English town by the sea called Hungstanton, and took a walk by the seaside. It was quite windy that day and most of people just sat on the beach and did not swim. We remembered that we had a kite in our car and strong wind was just perfect for it. So we let it out and ran with it on the beach. One remarkable thing about Hungstanton is it's rocks, which look interesting because of it's 3 colors.

When were driving near the forest that was near some palace when we saw the field full of deers. We didn't feel like visiting palace, but stopping near those animals and coming to see them closer looked like something amusing. It looked so unusual to see so many deers in one place, which looked like some sort of English safari. Deers however didn't much like our presence, and no matter how quietly we were walking towards them they were keeping distance from us, so our our idea of taking a walk among dears didn't result in anything.

Near the little village with a funny name "Wells-next-the-sea" we took another walk on the seaside, which was much less populated and had little colorful houses all along the beach. I haven't seen something like that before, and couldn't understand the purpose of those little houses which couldn't fit anything of a big size, like bed for example. Still have no clue, just guess it was used by fisherman to store fishing equipment when fishing business of that region was the main source of income.

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Ciao tutti!

2011-07-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

One thing that I was completely sure when leaving Italy is that I will never need Italian language again outside Italy. Turns out I was wrong! The company I am working for is very Italian. When I joined the company there were only about 30% Italians and the main language at least in my team was English. Now however after hiring more Italians and some certain restructuring changes, half of my team consists of Italians, who prefer to talk among themselves in Italian. I totally don't mind but would prefer to understand if what they say is concerning work or maybe what is even better - some interesting gossips, so from now on I decided to learn a bit of Italian. I am not particularly interested in following some courses or tutorials, I hope to learn it more from trying to understand what my colleagues say. Let's see how it goes.

Mark's expressions

2011-07-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

There are many of words that Mark already knows, but there are some that he uses more frequently which I find quite funny.

Kanka-red color

Dinda-grandfather

Ayayay - something is not right, might be a little disappointment, but also might be something really frustrating, all depends on the intonation

niam niam pit'-to drink. Pit' certainly comes from Russian pit', but in Marks point of view drink is food, just looking and tasting differently

Bi-(comes from Latvia "vis") meaning - that's all.

Da? which actually means Da! It's just the way Mark responds to our questions, i.e. Mark, poidiom poguliat? Da? Mark would reply: da? meaning he agrees to go. Same for Latvian "Ja". Actually a little while ago, Mark got an idea that I speak a different language from his father or grandmother, so when he would ask me some question he would add: Ja? Da? in the end, by basically translating to me in case I didn't understand

Bam-bam -always means one thing- to have a bath. That is what he does when he goes to have a bath, hitting the water with hands and splashing in all around by saying "bam-bam".

Apple - and apple, just wouldn't call an apple in any other languages apart from English

Agi- Andrejs

baby- this is how Mark refers to himself. Not Mark, not me..not anything else, but baby

odin-"one" in Russian is regularly used in the mornings during breakfast. Whenever I would come in and try to sit next to him, he would push me and say "odin", meaning, he would prefer all this sitting space to be only for him, wouldn't want it to be shared.

tapu-tapu- to walk, usually used in case Mark sits in his pushchair and would rather prefer to take a walk instead

Olympics

2011-06-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Boh! Who would ever imagine that it's almost impossible to get tickets for the Olympics in London! One thing I can't understand is that remembering winter Olympics in Torino, we could get relatively cheap tickets just 2 days before the performance, while here in London people need to apply more than a year in advance. And even if you do apply there is 90% of probability you'll fail to win them. How to explain that???!!!! There is explanation of cause but i just prefer to moan about it as I failed to get ones. One thing is that I only applied for an opening ceremony. Certainly everyone wants to see it, and it's the most competitive ticket of all, but even thought, most of the people i know couldn't even get anything to the most "unpopular" games.

I failed to get Olympic tickets, but instead got some free tickets for tomorrow's food event by Jamie Oliver. There will be some activities/performances apart from food as well, and normally tickets would cost 67 pounds, but I got them for free thanks to one very nice colleague of mine. Yay!

Catching up with sports

2011-06-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

After 3 year of an absolute passivity in sports I am trying to improve the situation by adding jogging into my weekly routine. First times I coudn't even run half of what others could, but little by little I am catching up. This all started when couple of my colleagues started jogging along the Thames during lunch break. Thames is quite close from us and there are quite nice paths that are quite good for jogging. I joined them a week later, and now after 3 weeks of time it's already 6 of us, which is half of the company. If this is going to progress with the same pace soon during the lunch time there probably won't be anyone to answer the phone calls in the office. Before starting jogging I couldn't even imagine how many Londoners do the same thing during lunch break, which is quite surprising as I never thought of English people being particulary into sports. In 30 minutes of jogging I did 5 km today!

2011-06-19T15:28:00.000-07:00

There is one thing Mark would never let any child do, is to take his things. On Saturday we took Mark to the Battersea park. After riding his bicycle for a while he stepped out to grab some stick on the grass that caught his attention. Mark loves sticks, he grabs them and runs after birds or hits pubbles with them. At that moment another child who spotted left alone bicycle came and was about to sit on it and when Mark noticed that he forgot about the stick and just ran towards the boy prepared to fight him and would hit the boy if his father wouldn't grab him on time. With another boy that Mark met in the park had much nicer experience. The boy wasn't interested in Mark's bicycle, and rather interested in picking up big leaves from the grass and showing them to his mother. Mark found the idea fascinating, and started doing the same thing by taking not only leaves but also grass and bringing it to boy's mother. She kept thanking Mark for his generosity and Mark definitely looked very pleased.

Latest pictures of Mark

Father's day

2011-06-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

The 3rd Sunday of June is Father's day in England and it's the first time Andrejs has celebrated it. We also bought a barbecue maker and made our first ever barbecue, this time just for us, sort of a trial before the big one that is coming next week. Today I went upstairs to take some things and left Mark in the kitchen for a while alone. I came back few moments later and he was already sitting on the window! Good we have keys to lock the windows. Couple of months ago when we were installing new windows builders have left us window keys which confused us a little, why would somebody want to lock closed windows from inside??? Now I see why!

Myvatn lake region

2011-05-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

I found Myvatn lake region an exceptionally interesting due to it's volcanic landforms and very unusual colors. When you are there it seems you are somewhere on another planet. Numerous geothermal mud holes which boiling smelly grey mud on yellow-brown volcanic landscape looks so unusual. And it also was the first time I've ever walked on the edge of a crater. And also the first time I walked in the "forest" formed by lava.

Our car

Dimmuborgir lava forest

Geysers

2011-05-26T14:49:00.000-07:00

And the last of the Golden Circle - geyser valley which has a famous Stokkur geyser, which erupts about every 10 minutes. Andrejs was very keen on taking a picture of the moment Stokkur was starting to erupt creating first a huge bubble, which breaks in a few moments and explodes into the air several meters high. Temperature of the water is boiling and even little rivers formed in that area by eruptions were hot as well.

Everyone is waiting for Stokkur to show up. Cameras ready.

Water level starts increasing

Which later forms this huge water bubble

Which explodes like that!

Sign about water temperature nearby

Gullfoss

2011-05-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

Gullfoss is a waterfall located in the canyon in southwest Iceland. I don't know much about that waterfall, only the story related to that waterfall about the woman who saved it from being exploited for electricity some time in the past century and the fact that during sunny hours of the day you might see a beautiful rainbow above it.

Thingvellir National Park

2011-05-26T14:02:00.000-07:00

Thingvellir is a part of Golden Circle which includes 3 the most popular tourist destinations after the Blue Lagoon, which as well includes the waterfall Gullfoss and the geothermally active valley of Haukadalur which contains the geysers Geysir and Stokkur.

Thingvellir national park was a beautiful and quite an easy place to hike but again we were pretty much the only people in there.

Hostel in Berunes

2011-05-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

Because of my enthusiasm to travel more and drive longer we could have missed that nice hostel that was literally in the middle of nowhere. Well...not exactly, as it was actually at the seaside, and very close from the main road, but in a completely unpopulated area of Southern Iceland. Andrejs however insisted we call it a day and stay at that hostel which was run by an elderly couple. On the entrance there was another tourist who just arrived and was filling in papers in reception and asked if he could have pancakes for breakfast. I though that's a bit weird to ask for pancakes for breakfast in a hostel, but asked the tourist if he is sure they are serving them to what he replied: this hostel is famous for it's pancakes!!! It was good to know and we ordered them for breakfast as well. They were very good!

As from one side of the hostel there was sea, on the other side there were mountains. In the evening we climbed one of the hiking paths up, saw a waterfall (no surprise here, waterfalls in Iceland are simply everywhere), then went down to the seaside, so pieceful and so quiet, then went back to the hostel and had a nice hot tea. Probably doesn't sound like anything exciting, but for me it was one of the nicest days in Iceland.

Berunes hostel

Hiking up

Now looking down

The seaside

Jokursarlon

2011-05-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

One day it was so windy that when I went out from the car and forgot to close the door the wind blew so strong and pushed the door so hard that I thought the door is gonna break. The door however survived and that also didn't stop us from continuing our travel. We were supposed to arrive to a national park called Skaftafell and do a little hike. On the way there it started snowing and in couple of minutes it went all dark, and at that time we were passing so called black beaches, where the sand was completely black by it's nature. The feeling was horrifying, sky was black, ground was black, the wind was shaking our car from one side to another and as usual the roads were completely empty, not a single car. We called it the way to Mordor. In about 30 minutes those horrific views changed by a nice sunny weather.
The way to Mordor

Later that day

The next day the wind was even stronger and we went to see the glacier in another national park Jokursarlon where we planned to take a boat trip to the glacier lake. I was a little concerned that the boats are gonna swim in such wind and asked the lady who was selling tickets if boat rides aren't gonna be cancelled to what she said: what??! cancel boat trip because of the little wind??? So we made it to the boat and had a swim in a big lake with blue ice, which 80 years ago for instance didn't exist. In 80 years this melting glacier created a lake covering 18 km2 and 200m deep!

Tourist boat

And that guy who was swimming separately from us brought us a big piece of ice that was later crashed into smaller pieces and distributed among everyone on the boat for eating. No kidding! Apparently snacks were included into boat tickets price.

There was also a little tourist information center by the lake that I found really cute!

The little one is back

2011-05-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

Our little one is back from Latvia and I simply coudn't wait to see him after more than 3 weeks since he went to Latvia. He grew a little and looks like became more organized and aware of things, more attentive and so much more talkative. He keeps learning new words in 3 languages, sometimes answering in one, sometimes in another language, which sounds very funny sometimes. We brought Mark a book about trolls in Iceland and I tried to read it for him before he went to bed. In one of the pictures Mark pointed his finger at some hairy troll with a huge nose and ears (female though) and said "mama". I keep wondering what he meant, and I do hope he didnt' mean it!

Blue Lagoon

2011-05-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

Before I start organizing and uploading billions of pictures I want to say couple of words about the great invention of Icelandic people called geothermal spa. It's water is coming from the ground near a lava flow and it's temperature comfortably regulated all over the year. The greatest thing about this warm open air bath is that you can come there in any weather - snowing, raining or horrible wind and just stay in this comfortable naturally blue water. I know our stay in Iceland without this attractions would not be the same. There are several (or many? not sure about that) such geothermal spas in Iceland, and the most famous one, called Blue Lagoon is in Reykjavik and we went there directly after our flight. It was so relaxing that we kept saying we have to come back again in the end our journey. Later we found another spa like that in the Northern part of Iceland and stayed there while it was terribly windy and snowing for several hours, and especially in such weather it worked like a magnet, I couldn't come out it. And I could even call it perfect if it wouldn't be so smelly, somewhere less, somewhere more, but still very very smelly.

Back from Iceland

2011-05-22T16:08:00.000-07:00

We are back from Iceland and this time we got lucky. Last time we missed our flights to London because of volcano eruption, this time we "tricked" the volcano (not the same though) by flying out from Iceland just 1 hour before the eruption occurred.

Or trip was initially inspired by Katia's and Bruno's trip's pictures from Iceland couple of years ago. Since then I was waiting for a chance to see this country.

It was probably the first time I went for holidays somewhere that north and that cold. It was cold, terribly windy, freezing and snowy sometimes. But we got several days of nice sunny weather as well, which also meant we still had to wear warm cloths, including hats, gloves and warm socks, and I even then it was cloudless and sunny temperature never reached more than +5. We knew how it was gonna be, so we did shopping for cloths for Icelandic weather before the trip.

Apart from being freezingly cold sometimes Iceland was amazing. We did a round trip around the island which sometimes meant to be several hours of driving without stop, however views around were so breathtaking that we simply couldn't just be driving through it, we would stop the car, come out and enjoy wonderful Icelandic nature (if weather conditions would allow).

One fascinating thing about driving in Iceland (note that there is only 1 main road around the island) is that sometimes you could drive for hours without meeting any cars on the way. This felt completely weird and spooky after busy English road traffic.

Another great thing about Iceland is that everyone there speaks English, so well that it felt like English is their second official language after Icelandic, so we felt absolutely comfortable in terms of language wherever we would go.

There were several new things I tried in Iceland I didn't try before - eating a wale, a puffin, beer ice cream and some kinds of fishes I haven't heard of or tried before. Whale's meat which I ate several times during the trip first made me almost throw up, which looked to me sort of uncooked and bloody and tasted very bad. Later on I was more comfortable with it after finding out that Icelanders actually cook whale's meat properly, it just for some reason looks bloody and in reality is not. So with some good sauce I could eat it. Puffins are very cute birds which kind is extincting in UK therefore it's forbidden to hunt them. In Iceland on the other hand population of puffins is increasing every year, and we were told it becomes a problem for some regions and this bird in on the menu of many restaurants, so we didn't feel bad about eating it. And since puffins' menu consists of fish, puffins themselves taste like fish as well. Beer ice cream on the other hand didn't taste like beer at all, it would rather taste like a usual good tasting ice cream.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

It's nice sometimes just to get away to Vilnius. I am here only for 3 days, but this little break is perfect for me. As usual in Lt I am not doing much, just hanging out with a close friend and family. Ah, and it's Easter time, so I am eating a lot, because my mom is a perfect Easter-cakes cook! Happy Easter!

Isle of Wight

2011-04-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

Isle of Wight the biggest island of England, which is actually very small. We spent a lovely weekend there. And the weather! It was simply fabulous!

Today and on Sunday

2011-04-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

I took a day off from work to register Mark with new GP in our area and later went to Lithuanian ambassy to unregister myself from my address Vilnius. 2 things completely unrelated, but had to be done one day. Now I am officially a citizen of only one city. Lithuanian embassy is nothing like I have imagined. It's basically a little cellar room with tiny corridor with 1 guard and 3 employees, who I must say were working quite efficiently despite a big queue. I was done in 15 minutes and as the embassy was close to Regents park, I took a chance and bought take away lunch to enjoy it on Regent Park's grass. It's the first very warm day this year, about 22 degrees and park was so full of people who had exactly the same idea as me. Regent's park is one of the most beautiful and most visited parks in London which now was particularly beautiful with all the blooming flowers and trees.

About 2 weeks ago Mei Sin and her husband came to London for 1 year, which was a pleasant surprise and we decided to meet on Sunday somewhere in the city centre by choosing London Bridge station. I don't know how many times I have been to that station which should make me quite familiar with it's exits and directions, but I always feel lost. I was running from one exit to another trying to find either Mei Sin with her husband or Valdemaras who both were in different ends. Hard to imagine how things would turn around 15 years ago, but thanks to such technology as a mobile phone we eventually found each other. Mei Sin didn't change at all as well as Valdemaras and me (I prefer to think like that:))) and we walked all the way down to Tower bridge remembering old days in Bolzano and discussing our stay in London.

On Sunday evening most of the places around Tower Bridge were closing down and we had no choice but to choose an still-open Italian-style cafeteria which were serving nothing-like Italian ice cream and not an Italian-way cappuchino at all. We took some pictures of each other, Mei Sin took pictures of everyone in different combinations, and I was too lazy for that, so I only took a picture of Valdemaras who was sitting right in front of me.

Friday, Friday!

2011-03-28T16:07:00.000-07:00

not to be missed! It's currently the most popular song in our office, especially on Fridays

London Eye

2011-03-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

For Andrejs 29th birthday we went to the London Eye. A very pleasant 30 minutes ride with magnificent views of London. Looots of pictures from that day

Maslenitsa

2011-03-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

We read in Russian newspaper about Sunday's Maslenitsa event in Trafalgar square. I wasn't quite sure what's the event is going to be about, however suspected it's going to include a market with lots of traditional Russian food including pancakes. I was quite excited and kept thinking about a mountain of delicious Russian pancakes I will eat. The event however didn't turn out to be exactly as I have imagined. Instead of a food market there was a concert of Russian national dances and songs. I was very surprised to find out that there were many famous Russian groups and singers performing traditional dances and songs on the scene. We found it quite amuzing and I think Mark liked it more than anyone else in the crowd and was dancing and singing along.

My hope, however, to eat a mountain of pancakes disappeared as soon as we found a place selling them (there was only 2 or 3 of them) and started queueing. After 10 minutes without any movement in the queue we realized it's hopeless, and went to Pret a Manger to eat sandwiches. Some pictures from that day

Mousetrap

2011-03-09T14:46:00.000-08:00

When Philipp comes to London we usually go to some theater. Currently Philipp is in London and today we went to see the Mousetrap, a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. A remarkable thing about it is that it's longest world's running play that has been running continuously since 1952 and made over 24,000 performances so far. The play is also known for its twist ending, which I read about before the play, and I thought that as I'm already familiar with the fact that there is going to be a twist, I will easily spot the murderer. I just will have have to choose the one whom I suspect the least. Every 15 minutes I was changing my mind and informing Andrjes about every thought I was having by providing all the reasonings behind my choice...poor Andrejs... When in the end of the play my head was already completely spinning from trying to identify the murderer from 7 people I suspected, the murderer turned out to be the 8th, the one I completely disregarded. And that was a tricky twist! After the play actors asked not to reveal the truth of the murder to anyone, so I say no more.

Madam Butterfly opera

2011-03-04T13:50:00.000-08:00

Currently became sort of crazy about different events. One said that if you are tired of London, you are tired of life. I can't disagree. There is so much to do, so much to see, so much to experience and all those events are never ending. And now I am becoming a theatre lover and London is just a perfect place for that. I have seen recently seen several theater pieces, but one of them impressed me in particular. Me and Anna decided to see Madam Butterfly opera, that is currently one of the hits in London. Opera's performance takes place almost every day with complete tickets sell-out. It takes place in Albert Hall, that has a shape of a circus being round and huge by being able to hold 8000 people. It's round shape design allows to see the whole scene from whatever place you sit which is a challenge for other London's theaters.

We didn't really know what to expect from this opera. I heard of well designed decorations, and Japanese opera singers. As for decorations to create a proper look of a Japanese garden the scene was flooded with water to create a little pond around the house of the main heroine. Singing was very good, though i didn't understand much except maybe rarely catching some separate words and it was a really good idea to buy a summary of opera acts before the play. One thing I was surprised about that singers weren't fat as I was imagining opera singers but rather slim and good looking. Before coming to the opera I had no idea of Madam's Butterfly's story. The story of Madam Butterfly is so unbelievably sorrow and heartbreaking that it leaves you in a complete shock afterwords making you wish to forget what has happened. The other operas I have previously been to (not too many though) had sad endings, this makes me wonder if it's kind of a must-do thing for an opera to finish with a tragedy. It was a very impressive, memorable performance which I would love to see again in a few years if I have a chance. I had my little camera with me.

Paraty

2011-02-23T14:03:00.000-08:00

I was very impressed by little Brazilian town Paraty. Paraty is Unesco World Heritage and was about 2 hours drive from Angra.

Interny

2011-02-22T15:29:00.000-08:00

Recommendation to everyone who speaks Russian to watch tv series "Interny". Absolutely hilarious! Even my mom who almost always fails to watch any kinds of tv series watches 4-5 episodes a day.

Sunday

2011-02-22T14:55:00.000-08:00

Cold, wet, rainy, foggy - that's how London is imagined by the vast population of the world. On Sunday indeed it was like that

Bumba

2011-02-21T14:51:00.001-08:00

Bumba this is how Mark calls a ball, circle, or anything that is round. Bumba is a real word, meaning "ball" in Latvian and is one of Mark' favorite and the most frequently used. Even the Moon is bumba. One day it wasn't a full Moon and Mark noticed that it isn't round. He pointed his finger towards the Moon looked at me with eyes full of sadness and said: ajajaj bumba...

Bumba is also a balloon. Mark loves them, especially when they fly up and stick to the ceiling, so that he cant reach it and makes everyone jump up to get it for him. Once we didn't tight it to the pushchair properly on the street and bumba flew up to the sky to Mark's greatest disappointment. He was so unhappy that could even remember that incident the next day and kept telling me "bumba ga-ga ajajaj". (A short explanation ga-ga is also a word in Mark's dictionary meaning "to fly", "an airplane" or something that is moving in the sky. Ga-ga comes from a bird, Mark calls all birds gaga. So "bumba ga-ga ajajaj" meant that a balloon flew away and it's very sad).

Next day we had to buy a new balloon. Mark was extremely happy, he was taking bumba with him everywhere no matter what he was doing, watching cartoons, drawing, eating playing with his cars, bumba was with him all the time, until he discovered that he actually can sit, lay and even jump on that bumba! We kept telling that if he is going to keep jumping on bubma like that bumba is going to blow up. That was exactly what happened few minutes after. This time however Mark felt probably that bumba's blow-up was related to what he did and prefered to forget and not to mention bumba anymore.

Mark is drawing

2011-02-21T08:51:00.000-08:00

About 1-2 months ago Mark found a new activity for himself - painting. This all started from the kindergarten which Mark is visiting 1-2 times a week. There he was given an apron (guess why? :)), paints and a molbert. I didn't see but Anna said Mark loved painting. So we bought pencils and Mark started to draw. When he draws he does it with both hands, sometime with both at the same time, sometimes changing from left to right. We still don't know if Mark is left or right-handed. Maybe both?

Cherry Orchard

2011-02-19T14:14:00.000-08:00

Sovremennik Moscow theater was doing 4 performances (Chekhov's plays) in London couple of weeks ago. Cherry Orchard play wasn't my favorite option for choice, but we couldn't make it for any other play, so we chose Cherry Orchard. From the name of the theater I expected something completely non classical with elements modern direction. However from the first scene there wasn't any doubt it is going to be classic Cherry Orchard with exactly the same text as I used to remember from old days in school. I thought I am not going to survive. The play was in Russian with English subtitles .To my surprise there were plenty of English people even several groups of school pupils. Language used in the play was original "Tchekhov's" language and even with good translation it wasn't probably well understood by English people. But who knows... It wasn't very long when I started to love the play and was so much into it that I didn't notice how 1.5 hours passed and the first part was over.

Actors were really good, which made me wonder who those actors were. At some point Andrejs asked me if the servant Firs role was played by actor Gaft, to which I replied that it can't possibly be him. I kept hearing Yakovleva's actress' voice throughout all the play but never imagined that the actress was actually Yakovleva herself. Only when I got back home and googled for actors I found out that all of them are very famous Russian actors like Sergey Garmash, Marina Neelova, Elena Yakovleva, Valentin Gaft and others.

2011-02-18T16:24:00.000-08:00

2 people decided to leave our company. For a company of 13 people it is a big loss , but as someone said that there is nothing bad that wouldn't turn into something good (or something similar). The boss took it quite seriously and in today's company's meeting announced that every employee will get an extra 2 days of holidays a year. He also mentioned if we feel like we are overworking or staying late, we can take another 5 days of holidays (payed by company), which is generous, I think. I don't overwork, but I was very happy to get an extra 2 days of vacation!

Angra dos Reis

2011-02-15T14:05:00.000-08:00

Angra dos Reis is a small town that was close to our resort, where me and Olga (another one, there were really 2 of us!) went to spend there couple of hours. There were 4 white little chuches, colorful buildings, and thousands of little touristic boats by the shore.

Vila Gale

2011-02-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

Angra is a resort in South-east Brazil with 365 islands nearby. We spent 4 days in Angra in a 5 star hotel. It was my first time staying in such hotel with all drinks and food included. There was so much food and it was so good, and it was hard to resist not to eat even when you aren't particularly hungry. I think I never even felt hungry on that resort. Food was very different and delicious every day and drinks (including alcohol drinks) were also free. Next to the beach hotel staff was making cocktails and any kinds of shakes. You could choose any fruits you like and they would make it a shake out of it. There were so many new fruits for us (those who were non-Brazilians) that we experimented with every possible fruit combinations. I can't even remember those fruits names. I remember however I drank a milk shake with avocado. Avocados in Brazil are different from "European" avocados, they are huge and more sweet! The milkshake had an unusual taste, I can't say i didn't like it, but I can't claim it was wonderful either.

The resort was called Vila Gale and had a private beach with very still water despite being on the shore of the ocean. No waves, not even very little ones. Every day there was a live music concerts with Brazilian songs and music, also a disco room with karaoke. It was very hard to agree on what to sing so that everyone from our company would know the song, so we chose the most known ones from the Beatles. Brazilians were impressed or maybe thought we were rather crazy to come all together to sing, but were applauding very intensively.

One day we went for a walk outside the resort to see wild monkeys. It wasn't long until we found them. We did couple of small trips outside Vila Gale to explore little towns around before we went to our last Brazilian destination - Iguassu Falls.

Rio city center and Rio Scenarium

2011-02-13T07:09:00.000-08:00

More to wonderful beaches and fascinating Christ the Redeemer statue Rio has an old impressive city center with new mixed with old Portuguese style colorful houses. We went to see Lapa which is a neighbourhood in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. It is located in the centre of Rio and is famous for its historical monuments and nightlife.

In Lapa there is an Arcos da Lapa, an impressive aqueduct constructed in by colonial authorities. Now it is no longer used to transport water but is still usable. For trams!

In one of the evenings we went to see Brazilian dance performance, including many national dances of different parts of Brazil, which we so different from one another and very colorful.

On the way back to UK we had a chance to spend several hours in Rio before flying back. It was a late flight, so as I remembered several people recommended to go Rio Scenarium for some drinks. It's sort of a night club/bar but where peope of any age is welcome. We entered a very spacious room full of antiques which at first looked like a museum. There were plenty of tables around, and a scene. Antiques were simply everywhere. There are collections of all kinds - clocks, scooters, radios, mannequins - lining every wall and corner. Then we noticed that this place in not just 1 floor! It was 3 or floors up! We climbed up to see what was there. And it was almost the same, all antiques, huge space, tables and a scene. We came when Rio Scenarium was just about to open, so we were among the first people and had a chance to chose a good table. But in half an hour so many people came that there wasn't any sitting places anymore. Live music was great and many people danced near the scene, we however just sat and drank Brazilian Beer enjoying all this cool atmosphere. In couple of hours we had to get back to the airport, but were very happy to have a chance to visit such place. No pictures from me, but there are plenty pictures of Rio Scenarium online.

Rio scenarium

Oxford

2011-02-11T15:22:00.000-08:00

Little beautiful town Oxford is just 1 hour away from London. When Andrejs father was staying a few days in London in the end of January we went together to see it. I kept saying Andrejs that it's all reminds me of Hogwarts, fictional college from Harry Potter book. Apparently, I was right, when we entered one of the colleges halls we found out that several movie scenes from 2 Harry Potter movies were filmed exactly there. Mark found the hall particularly exciting and kept running from one side of the hall to another. Interesting thing that the glass in internal yards of Oxford colleges is not there for walking, it is even forbidden to walk on it, with a very little exception. Only people who achieve certain degree in in certain field are allowed to walk on it. Weird Oxford college rules.

We climbed Oxford Church all together and saw Oxford from the top and that was the last thing we saw in Oxford before heading back. A slideshow report

Sightseeings in Rio

2011-02-06T06:22:00.000-08:00

There are so much more than just good beaches in Rio. It's the city, it's atmosphere, friendly people and great sightseeings. There was a day (2nd day of our stay in Rio) when in one day we saw every attraction tourists would normally go to. We hired a little bus (actually Bruno and his parents did) and a guide who would bring us to those top Rio destinations and tell us about them. One of them is of cause Christ the Redeemer. That place as simply wonderful. No wonder Katia and Bruno when they visited it for the first time spent 4 hours hanging around the Christ statue. We didn't have so much time though as we had so many things to see, but 1 hour we spent there was quite enough. It's not just about Christ statue which by itself is great, but it's also the location and the surroundings that make it so attractive. It's situated on the top of one of Rio's hills and once you on the top it opens fantastic views of Rio and it's seaside.

We've been to Maracana too. Maracana is a huge football stadium where important football events take place. It either used to be or still is the biggest stadium in the world and is going to host 2014 World Cup. As I am not a big fan of football, and probably not even close becoming one, this place wasn't much of interest to me, but there were still some amusing things to do. You could see footprints of famous Brazilian football players and take pictures next to their posters which we did.

And this one the picture below on the left which doesn't like anything special at all is, actually, a very important place. It's Sambadrom, the place where Rio's Carnival participants perform by walking along the street.

Sugar Loaf mountain is probably second most visited place in Rio. It's name is coming from it's shape as it looks similar to concentrated refined loaf sugar. To get there we took a cable car which I was told was the only cable car in Brazil, so it also was quite an amazing sightseeing to take a cable car ride on the unique Brazilian cable car. This however turned out to be not true, as Bruno said there is another cable car in some other Brazilian part going into some cave.

Rio and beaches

2011-02-02T01:37:00.000-08:00

Rio de Janeiro is the coolest city in South America. I am sure it is, even if I haven't seen most of South American cities. It just must be! Our sightseeings started from Rio's botanic garden. When Bruno with Katia made this suggestion I thought that it wasn't such a good idea as I imagined it as boring as other botanic gardens I have seen before. But this one actually turned out to be very good. There were huge size palms planted along alleys which looked really impressive. They also were very old, planted more than a hundred years ago. Besides there were many other plants and trees, orchids orangery, and lots of monkeys. Our big group immediately took out cameras and everyone tried to do as many pictures as possible. Monkeys also were interested in our cameras. One of them tried to steal a camera from Olga, luckily she spotted monkey's intentions on time.

There are fantastic beaches and locals go there very often be it swimming, walking or just enjoying or hanging around on the beach. The most famous beach of Rio is Copacabana beach. It's very long and very clean with very soft and pleasant sand. I loved the lifestyle of local people. Even in the early morning at 5-6 a.m. you could find many joggers in Copacabana beach pedestrian road. I was really surprised by how Brazilians take care of their physical appearance, seeing man and women exercising in the streets which was actually very inspiring. I am not a big fan of sports, but when I was in Rio I went for jogging couple of times. I woke up early and followed the pedestrian way along the seaside until the end of Copacabana beach and then all the way back. Katia and Bruno who also went jogging suggested to take a different path and jog along the beach on sand. I took their advice and ran on the sand bare feet which was more challenging as sand was very soft and when waves would approach me I would have to run quicker to avoid them. Sometimes I couldn't, so my shorts were all wet.

People in Brazil wear Havaianas, which I think deserve to be mentioned. Those shoes are the most popular shoes in Brazil, everyone wears them, reach and poor, tall and small, children and adults... Basically they are never out of fashion. And they are very addictive too. Once I bought my first pair I started to think about the second. Then I bought the second, I started to think about the third. And I was about to buy the third pair when I pictured in my head London's weather and realised that Brazil is probably going to be the last place to wear them, so I stopped right on time.

Copacabana beach pictures
Copacabana pavement mosaic. Symbolizing coffee and milk

One day we went to see Ipanema beach. Another famous (2-ond famous) beach of Rio, probably best knows for the song called (Girl from Ipanema), which is known by every Brazilian and was a huge hit in the mid-1960s wordwide. I personally have never heard that song before, but had a chance to familirise myself with it. Katia can even sing it in Portugese, which she did together with Bruno. And some pictures of Ipanema beach.

Sleepy Zug

2011-01-22T16:33:00.000-08:00

The Zug I will write about isn't a train as one might think by reading the title, Zug is also a name of a small town in Switzerland. Diana said it's famous for it's gorgeous views over the lake with plenty of mountains in the background. This however was completely impossible to see, neither how big the lake was nor any beautiful numerous mountains in the background as whole little town Zug was covered in fog. Frankly speaking I thought such thing would happen to me only once when I was in Sicilian mountain town Erice, where it was so foggy I hardly could see anything that was more than 10 meters in front of me. This time it was almost the same with Zug which allowed us to take some foggy pictures. In almost 1 hour however all the fog disappeared completely and opened a colorful sunny view of the lake.

More pictures from Zug and another little hilly town, called Baden, which Diana took me to on my last day in Switzerland

Snowboarding in Swiss Alps

2011-01-22T03:22:00.000-08:00

When my colleagues at work ask me how many days I spent in the mountains in Switzerland and I say 1 they start laughing and ask me what was the point of going there at all. In a way of cause, 1 day of snowboarding in the whole season isn't much at all, but hopefully next year we can do better. This year I felt like Switzerland is much more than just good skiing resorts. But anyway, I am glad we tried one of them.

The best part of it were absolutely stunning views and great food and the worst part was wet snow. It took me a while to get used to it and when I finally did, I was so exhausted that I could no longer snowboard. This ski resort near Schwyz town is not much different from Italian resorts in South Tyrol, except maybe being more expensive, but even food was similar. We ordered Gulash Suppe, exactly hat I used to order in South Tyrolean Alps. It was so good! There were also musicians playing outside our restaurant which we on purpose tried to avoid and went to sit inside as they were playing too loud, but later they came inside and started to play indoors, however instruments they were using were different. 2 of which, called Alpine Horn (if I'm correct) looked so long which made me wonder first if it wasn't some kind of joke, as it would seem like they could only be played by some giants.
Pictures from the resort

Images of Luzern

2011-01-22T02:05:00.000-08:00

As far as I understood Luzern it's famous for it's old bridge across the river with remarkable tower next to it and it's walking paths along the river look absolutely lovely. There was some parade going on this day where people were marching the streets dressed into national cloths and other different costumes, which seemed quite unrelated. How on earth people dressed like bankers, kings, musicians can be related to cats for example? Only Swiss people could probably explain. But anyway, we found the event amusing and considered ourselves lucky to be able to see it absolutely by chance.

Images of a lovely town Luzern

In Zurich

2011-01-21T14:20:00.000-08:00

I love to make plans about travelling, book hostels/hotels, read travel guides, travel reviews and basically everything related to travel organization, but this time it this all wasn't necessary. This time we went to Switzerland to visit Diana and Andrej who know their living area and surroundings very good and took us to some beautiful places around. I must say I did really enjoy it by having a very good and relaxing break from work. 4 days only, but was quite enough to get the best of it. Diana and Andrej live in little town/village near Zurich called Bonstetten. Their flat is situated right on the hill from which you can get a good view of the whole village. Diana and Andrej have a car, which is very convenient (unlike having a car in London) to travel around the area and explore little towns. And that's what they do.

But before writing more about Switzerland I want to comment on a great "invention" called Yotel, which is a hotel of Gatwick airport. Since my stay there, Gatwick is my favourite airport on earth! Our flight was at 6:30 a.m. which meant that we would have to sleep in the airport, because no trains are leaving that early from our living area. I was googling online what's the best way to spend the night in Gatwick, when I found out about Yotel which is literally inside the airport and only a few steps away from departure gates!

Despite rooms being very small and by small I mean really small, you probably couldn't even jump in it, as ceiling are too low and it was a little pricey, but was totally worth it. We slept very well and could spend the whole day with Andrej and Diana travelling.

Our Swiss travel we started from Zurich. We climbed one of the high city center towers and looked at Zurich from above. We walked around for a while, went to have a coffee and spending there probably no more than 2-3 hours we were mostly done. Turned out Zurich wasn't as big as I expected, which is a good thing, as right after that we went to a very cute little town called Luzern.
Images of Zurich

Barcelona

2011-01-04T14:04:00.000-08:00

View all

Get your own

For our wedding anniversary we went to Barcelona. Barcelona isn't a very huge city but there are lots of things to do. It was very hard to see everything in 3 days, so we decided not to hurry and just enjoy our time. While going through our pictures I just realised that I am missing a least half of them. How did that happen I don't know, but I am guessing I didn't copy all of them from sd card and later deleted them from it.

It was my 2 time in Barcelona, I remembered how much i liked it that time and decided that Andrejs (who has never been there before) must see it. He didn't mind in fact. Most of the time we walked along lovely small and old streets of Barcelona's old city center, hanging around in cafes and small bars, eating Tapas (Spanish snacks) and drinking Sangria. Sangria was so popular in Barcelona that whenever you go there always will be someone who would drink it. And it was very good too, and not as strong as wine and served in big glasses.

In the end of summer the weather in Barcelona is still quite hot and many people hang out by the beach. Me and Andrejs also went there to enjoy sun and have some swim. I also got some Asian massage, apparently illegal, as in the middle of it the lady run away once she saw the police strolling along the beach and came back after they were gone. Can't complain about the massage though, was very nice.

We went to see singing fountains performance, La Pedrera, walked around famous and were very impressed by Sagrada Famiglia, took a cable car to MontJuic mountain with an old castle, visited Miro art museum nearby and of cause strolled along La Rambla, the most famous street of Barcelona.

For our wedding anniversary dinner we chose to go to a restaurant chosen long before we came to Barcelona (a recommendation from my work colleague, a Barceonean guy), which in the end we didn't go to. On the way to the restaurant we were walking by such a cute little square nearby an old church with 3 small restaurants and absolutely amazing atmosphere and we went no further. I haven't seen such a small square nowhere else before, we absolutely loved it and spent the rest of the evening enjoying Tapas with Sangria and music of street musicians.

Christmas time and Mark

2011-01-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

There are lots of events and places for kids in London. Recently we took Mark to Horniman's kids museum. There is a room of different unusual musical instruments from all over the world so kids can try them out. Also the museum itself is very big and there is lots of space (something we can't say about our flat), so Mark was very happy to run around from one room to another. Once he was so fast that we both lost him among other kids and were running around trying to find him. In one of underground rooms there was a big aquarium with colorful fishes, something Mark was very impressed with. One fish that caught his eye was swimming in one place and Mark kept watching it, then the fish started to swim fast another direction and Mark decided he should follow it and was running after the fish along aquarium wall back and forth.

For Christmas Mark got a new car. He was very impressed and wouldn't leave it for a second even before Andrejs managed to properly set it. Under the seat of his car there is a box that can be opened and used as some storage place. Mark likes to put a cat toy into it. He would open it, put the cat inside, close the box, sit into his car, drive it, get out from the car, open the box and make a very surprised face expression that he can't imagine how the cat could turn out under his seat!

On 25 of December we had some guests (Andrejs uncle and his wife) whom later we took St. Paul's Cathedral to listen to Christmas Carol. We were a little anctious Mark won't like to stay for the whole concert, but he was so surprised to see such a huge space that he coudn't stop looking around. He also loved clapping together with everyone when songs finished.

The next day we went to an Italian restaurant next to the Tower Bridge, which has wonderful views on the river and the bridge itself. The place was very child friendly and Mark got some presents from restaurant's staff, colorful pencils with a special drawing paper with a cook drawn on it. When Mark saw it he said "diadia". Mark knows that diadia is a person who is male and not his father or a grandfather. He doesn't know however how to say "tiotia" yet.

A waiter suggested to order some food from children menu. There wasn't much choice from only 3 dishes, and we ordered Pasta Bolognese just to give it a try. When Mark saw it, he took 1 piece of pasta, ate it, but didn't eat any more of it. I guess he isn't a big fan of Italian cuisine. Instead Mark learned how to drink juice from a straw.

Mark is a big fan of dish washing. Usually when I sit on a chair in the kitchen he comes to me, grabs my hand and starts pulling me from the chair. First I thought that he just doesn't want me to sit and wants me to play with him. But actually that isn't what he wants. Once I stand up he no longer shows any interest in me and walks towards the chair, and starts pushing it towards the sink. Then he stands on the chair, grabs dishes that stand next to the sink and tries to turn on the water. When the water appear in the sink that's when all fun begins. Mark starts washing them making lots of excited noses and pouring water all over the place. That's how Mark looks after washing the dishes.

And this is "Baby". We bought it for Mark in Barcelona. Mark calls the toy "Baby" as well as other small children that he sees on the street. Baby isn't Mark's favorite toy, but he likes to press a button on his back which when you press says "mama", "papa" and other things I can't remember now.

Mark loves to have long walks, especially when there are some small stairs he can step up or down in the street. He wouldn't miss a chance to climb any stairs he sees, even if they aren't really on our planned route. When steps up or down he calls it "kap-kap", something grandmother Anna taught him.

Mark

2010-11-25T14:48:00.000-08:00

Mark is a big boy now and is already 1.5 years old. He learned many new things. He can play with cars, it is actually his favorite thing. He has already about 10 of them, maybe even more. He calls them "tu-tu". Sometimes he calls them "bi-bi". He also loves music and tries to sing along. He has several favourite songs and whenever he hears them, he starts dancing and turning around. Sometimes when he is impressed by his performance he would clap his hands. In the mornings when I am still asleep and he already woke up he comes to me, takes my hand and makes me go with him to start playing morning cartoons, because that is what he does in the mornings. There are also cartoons he doesn't like to watch. So whenever I am starting the "wrong" one he starts shaking his head, that's when I know I picked the wrong one. Mark also can talk. He can say "auau" when he sees dog, "katis" (means cat in Latvian) when he sees a cat, pi-pi for a mouse, muuuuu for a cow, gaga for birds, baby when there is a small child. He knows what hot means, as whenever he feels there something might be not of a comfortable temperature he would say "karsts", which means hot. He can say bumba, which is a ball in Latvian. Mark also understands well Russian but for the time being prefers to talk in Latvian. Every day Anna (Mark's grandmother) brings him to a local nursery park to play for couple of hours. There Mark also learns English. I can't confirm, but Anna says he understands English too. In the working dyas when it is after 6 p.m. and it is the time for me and Andrejs to come back home from work Mark is waiting for us all the time and keeps repeating mama, papa to his grandmother. He also is quite unhappy when we leave in the mornings so we try to do it quietly when he is still watching cartoons. Mark can show almost all the parts of my face, especially the nose. When I ask him to show where the nose is, he would point at my nose, then at his, and then if Andrejs is around will also point at daddy's nose.

Piracicaba's adventures continue

2010-11-11T15:54:00.000-08:00

This was our last day in Piracicaba before heading to Rio and Bruno arranged for us sightseeing activities for the whole day starting from visiting Agricultural University park, main city square, a lunch in churrascaria, walks by Pracicaba river, a little boat trip, and finihing with Brazilian ice cream degustation. The most memorable event of the day was our lunch in churrascaria but about it a little later.

Bruno told us that Piracicaba is a town of sugar cane and we shouldn't miss a chance if want to try sugar cane juice there. Sugar cane juice squeezer machines are popular in many places in Piracicaba and we had lots of chances to try it during the day and I loved it's very sweet flavor!

This is a church in Piracicaba's main square

Churrascaria was the next place on the list for the day and I am sure it is going to be remembered by all members of our group. In this place waiters attack you with meat. Literally! Churrascaria is kind of a barbecue house where you can eat any kind of grilled meat as much as you want. Actually it is more as much as you can! Passadores (meat waiters) come to your table with knives and a skewer, on which are speared various kinds of meat - beef, pork, lamb, chicken, ham, sausage or any other sort of local cut of meat and slice it directly into your plate. We booked a table in one of the best and highly rated Churrascarias in town, came there all together and there was when it began. Waiters started to come one by one, bringing all this good looking, tasty smelling delicious types of meat. Whatever they were bringing we just couldn't resist. It was too good not to try it. We were brought about 10 different types of meat and other snacks and quite soon we were full. Locals however explained to us that it's only the beginning and that we should prepare ourselves for more. There also was a little carton circle with green and red colors on the sides. Placing face-up green would mean we want more meat, placing it up red means - we want to take a break from eating. Most of us places red as we simply didn't have anymore place in our stomachs. However when waiters saw that they probably thought that we misunderstood something and kept coming bringing this delicious irresistible meat. Even being so full we just couldn't say no, it was impossible and we ended up eating there probably 2 hours in total.

Us and a friendly passador

After lunch Bruno took us for a walk by along Piracicaba river. This river is famous for being a real pain in the neck for fishes who try to swim upstream to reproduce, and meet the waterfall wall on their way which is very difficult or even impossible to jump over. There are probably many videos in Youtube about that and I am gonna find one and put in as it looks quite impressive. I personally didn't see that as it wasn't the right season for fish migration.

Watching Piracicaba's waterfall

In the end of the day we took half an hour boat ride in Piracicaba river enjoying nice views of
Piracicabas shores in the sunset.
Me and Katia

Later we went together for an ice cream. I thought that a scoop of ice cream in Brazil shouldn't differ from the size of the scoop in Europe. I ordered 2 scoops of different flavours and instead got 4, which apparently was a normal 2-scoop portion by Brazilian measures!

Brazilian wedding and afterwords...

2010-11-10T16:16:00.000-08:00

As Katia and Bruno gave us very precise instructions of what exactly to do, where to stand and everything related to their church wedding ceremony, which wasn't much complicated and everything was supposed to go smoothly which it did. Brazilian weddings mostly take place in churches and usually quite late, as it's quite uncommon for a church ceremony to be in the afternoon. Katia and Bruno got married in a small church of Piracicaba where also Bruno's parents got married long time ago. As expected in Brazilian church you would speak Portuguese and Katia did learn wedding vows in Portuguese very well. When the right time came the priest and gave the first word to Katia I think everyone was impressed. Even me who didn't understand a word she said. But what was my surprise when Bruno pronounced exactly the same words but in Russian, this wasn't expected by anyone, even Katia!

The wedding's unofficial part took place in Bruno's parents' house and lasted almost 4 p.m. Bruno's parents have a beautiful house and all the wedding decorations were done so well that you could feel like you are in a restaurant. There were no such things like toasts saying, cake cutting, bride steeling and other traditional things I saw in other weddings I have been to. Instead there was lots of fun dancing, with different accessories, I suppose coming from traditions of carnival, even Katia got some white feeders.

There also were barmen who would make any cocktail you like.

One thing that surprised me the most was Bruno who wasn't able to dance when Katia and other guests were all dancing together. Bruno would just stand in front of Katia without making any moves at all and kept smiling. I found that absolutely weird and couldn't believe that anyone could possibly be that desperate in dancing. Katia told me that they are going to have a wedding dance but they will leave it to end of the party as she explained to me it's because they wanted everyone to be less judgemental than if that would happen at the very beginning. I found that a little strange, but did believe her. When the moment of the wedding dance came and Bruno and Katia even changed their cloths for dancing, I must say i didn't expect anything good. But the music started playing and there it was, I couldn't believe! An absolutely great surprising dance based on 'Dirty Dancing' movie 'The Time of My Life' song and both being very good dancers and no sing of Bruno being even a little non-confident in his dance. I really loved it! I even don't know what I loved more, their 'trick' or their dance.
The day after the wedding

The next day we were invited to Bruno's house for Feijoada - the most famous Brazilian dish made of beans, beef and pork. The dish was prepared by their neighbour who also were at the wedding the night before and who is a very good Feijoada cook.

Just before Feijoada lunch we went for a walk to a nearby little forest. Except for Bruno we all were foreigners and found this little forest like a mini jungle. There were so many weird plants, animals, insects that we spent there couple of hours taking pictures of each other around this flora and fauna. Actually, not all plants did look weird, many of them I already knew! They also grow in Lithuania! But guess where! In flower pots at home! The difference is that in Brazil they look giant, something like 5-10 times bigger than what we are used to see in our homes.

The trees in this little forest were surrounded by this kind of bugs, or to be pricise their leftovers. This what is sitting on Andrejs nose it's a bug, it is bug's skin, and bug himself turned into a flying insect, left his skin and flew away. Those bugs are also very loud. So loud that when we heard them "singing" for the first time we thought it must be some kind of factory in action. I could only remember how to pronounce the name of it, it sounds something like 'sigara' but have no clue how to spell it correcty

Bananas growing just like that

Feijoada

Claudia (Bruno's mom) is an excellent host and a very friendly beautiful woman. And this is her invention. You wouldn't believe! Jelly-vodka!

Finally my album is done

2010-11-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

A little late, but better late than never.

Discovering China | Make Your Own Book

First days in Brazil

2010-10-30T02:42:00.000-07:00

After an 11-hour flight we stepped on Brazilian earth, very warm and friendly. People in Brazil are very open, very relaxed and talkative (even if they don't know a word in English). In the airport we met Nati and Daniel, an Austrian couple who also came to Brasil for Katia's and Bruno's wedding and landed almost at the same time as we did. We took a taxi and went directly to Bruno's sister's house to have some rest before going together to Piracicaba.

Piracicaba, Bruno's home town has 400000 inhabitants and isn't considered to be a big town taking into account that a population of nearby Sao Paolo is 14 mln! All very tired and hungry we arrived to Piracicaba and immediately went to a barbecue place where Katia, Bruno and other their family members and friends were having dinner and discussing wedding plans for the next day. We joined them and ordered a big grilled fish that was delicious but turned out to be too much despite the fact that we were very hungry.
Bruno explaining telling us about types and names of fishes we are about to choose

Fish is on the table

Eating well and getting know each other

Katia and Bruno who were supposed to get married next day looked very relaxed. They even joined us for lunch next day some hours before their wedding.

This day we slept well, but already woke up at 5 a.m. because of jet lag.
Our Piracicaba's hotel turned out to be very good, good rooms, good service and a very good breakfast.
View from the window of our hotel room

One part of buffet in our hotel. Probably no need to explain why I gained weight in Brazil

We had some hours before meeting for lunch with all foreigner Katia's and Bruno's guests and Katia and Bruno themselves and ask the receptionist what to see in Piracicaba. I am surprised I am actually typing this name without having to look up for it. Took me a while to remember the correct version of the town's name as before I called it Picaraciba, Piracaciba and other imaginable combinations of words you can get using the same letters. The receptionist told us there is a park nearby the biggest Brazilian Agricultural university and that we could have a walk there. It was just 15 min walk from our hotel and once we arrived to the park we had a "walk" in there if you can call it like that. We were climbing the trees, touching different weird looking plants or breaking them in order to find out what is inside, running after birds and taking their photos and basically doing everything what locals would probably never do.

The lunch place was planned at Bruno's aunt's restaurant. Very often or most of the time restaurants in Brazil work in a buffet way: you take whatever you like from variety of dishes and later pay for the weight on your plate. Very good and fair in my opinion. Pity we didn't always chose to go to this kind of restaurants choosing instead "all you can eat" type. Would probably save some kgs of my weight. I must admit I haven't eaten as much in my entire life as I ate in Brazil. But it's not without a reason. Food in Brazil is very good! Very different, tasty, fresh, delicious, and I can use many many other good adjectives to describe it...

After lunch Isis, Olga, Nati and me went to a local beauty salon to get ready for the wedding. At the same time there were many girls inside getting their nails, makeups, hairstyles done. We were told that that day there were 7 brides. Apparently, this beauty salon is very famous in Piracicaba. All the hairdressers were working so fast that it didn't take more than half an hour to fix any kind of hairstyle. To be honest, quality o such hairstyles was proportional to the time they spent doing it, as most of us found it a little undone and nothing like the hairstyles we have chosen from their catalogs. Make-up doing man was also working so fast that most of us got make up done within 10 minutes but this time I quite liked it. When all of us were done with makeups and hairstyles we were ready to go to the wedding.

2010-10-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

We haven't seen Mark for almost 1 month now. Before we went to travel he went to Latvia to visit his grandparents. Every day me and Andrejs keep remebering him, what he said, what he did, watching pictures of him, we missed him so much! Tomorrow he is back to London, I can't wait to see my lovely boy

Мое знакомство с фавелой

2010-10-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

По просьбе одного моего хорошего нового знакомого (Катиного папы Сергея, с которым мы путешествовали вместе 2 недели) я напишу немного о фавелах, трущебных поселениях Рио де Жанейро. 11 человек нашей группы побоялись или просто не захотели пойти на экскурсию в фавелы, а поскольку я не могла смириться со своим интересом побывать хотя бы в одной из фавел, я купила экскурсию проводимую местным гидом и побывав там хочу рассказать о своих впечатлениях. Фотографии на территории фавел строго запрещены из соображений безопасности самих же фотографов. Как объяснил нам гид, маскирующимся туристом может оказаться журналист или работник полиции чего местные жители не потерпят. Не смотря на запрет я все же сделала несколько фотографий оставшейся незамеченной.

Фавелы это поселения бедных слоев населения Бразилии. В Рио таких поселений начитывается более 600 что составляет 20% всего населения Рио. Я побывала в 2, одна из которых (Rocinha) является самой многонаселенной фавелой в Южной Америке, насчитывающей 250.000 жителей.
Rocinha

Как все начиналось

В 1888 году Бразилия стала последней страной Южной Америки официально отменившей рабство. Рабы, в свою очередь, были освобождены без земли и каких либо средств, а значит вынуждены были покинуть фазенды своих хозяев без гроша в кармане и искать счастье где придется. А поскольку идти им было некуда, 13 мая 1888 года сразу после отмены рабства город Рио переполнился ново-свободными рабами которые на несколько недель превратили город Рио в огромную спальню, так как спали они прямо на центральных улицах города. Через несколько дней бывшие рабы стали заселять ненаселёных места города, в основном окупируя горные местности Рио. Не зная и не имея никаких познаний в строительстве они строили свои дома как могли не учитывая непригодности грунта, прочности и качества строй материалов. Именно это и стало причиной затопления многих домов и гибели их жителей при наводнении когде уровень воды от дождей в низинах фавел достиг нескольких метров. В одной из фавел (Vila Canoas), вторая фавела, в которой я побывала, на стенах до сих пор видны следы от уровня поднявшейся воды.

Само название фавела произошло от названия дерева Фавела, растущего на склонах холмов на которых как раз и селились бывшие рабы. Следующим потоком нахлынувших бедняков в фавелы стали бразильские крестьяне из деревенских глубинок приехавшие в Рио что б найти хоть какую то работу во времена голода и безработицы. Не имея средств и денег они так же были вынуждены селиться в фавелах.

Власть наркодиллеров и местные законы

В конце 1970х когда употребление кокаина опередило употребление марихуаны в несколько раз, фавеловские преступные банды пришли к власти прибегая к насилию, воровству и эксплуатации детей. Прибыль от продаж кокаина возросла в несколько раз благодаря зависящим от кокаина подростков богатых и средних классов населения, а наркодиллерские и наркоторговые банды становились все более преступными и полиция практически потеряла всякий контроль над фавелами. Таким образом к началу 80-х к полной власти в фавелах пришли наркодиллеры подчиняя себе всё население фавел издавая в них свои неписаные законы. Законы в фавелах далеки от Бразильских государственных законов, тем не менее соблюдаются гораздо строже каждым жителем фавелы, что как считают сами жители фавел, делает их жизнь безопасной. Неписаные правила отличаются от фавелы к фавеле, но некоторые из них остаются неизменными для всех. Вот список нарушений которые преследуютсиа жестокими наказаниями жителей всех фавел Рио:

- Воровство в собственной фавеле
- Насилие и драки между жителями
- Какие либо разговоры с полицией
- Хранение огнестрельного оружия не известив об этом руководящую банду

Наказания за такие нарушения могут быть очень жестокими. Например за воровство отрубают руку, сжигают живьём за изнасилование, или полностью исключают из общины что означает что нарушивший закон уже никогда не сможет туда вернуться. Исключению из фавелы подвергаются так же маленькие дети и не могут вернуться обратно не смотря на то что их родители продолжают жить в общине. Таким образом в Рио количество беспризорников насчитывается тысячами. Многие дети в возрасте 8 лет вынуждены попрошайничать, спат на улицах и выполнять какую либо работу что б хоть как то выжить. Жители фавел так же не имеют права не работать. Каждый житель обязан чем то заниматься и приносить пользу общине. За безделие они так же исключаются из общины. Одно из правил свидетельницей которого я стала это запрет ездить на мотороллерах или мотоциклах в касках. Оказывается что жители фавел знают друг друга в лицо, а прячущий под каской лицо мотоциклист может оказаться гангстером из чужой фавелы или полицейским приследующим наркодилеров. Сами же главари банд всегда находятся на чеку и кочуют из одного дома фавел в другой, становясь неуловимыми для полиции. А посколку почти каждое появление полиции в фавелах закачивается кровопролитием, полиция в фавелах почти не появляется.

Интересно что в Рио существует поселение фавел все дома которой окрашены в голубой цвет. Когда мы спросили почему все дома одного цвета, гид нам рассказал что однажды полицейские Рио узнали о том что главарь банды живет в окрашенном в голубой цвет доме и готовили операцию по захвату. Жители фавелы узнав об этом перекрасили все дома в голубой цвет что б найти главаря стало невозможным.

Фавелы сегодня

Еще совсем недавно жители общин не имели права на медицинское обслуживание и доступа к системе образования. Дети и взрослые умирали от излечимых в больничных условиях болезней, а средняя продолжительность жизни в фавелах достигала всего 45 лет.

Буквально за последние несколько лет благодаря международным организациям помощи и инвестиционным проектам уровень жизни в фавелах заметно улучшился. В фавелах построили больницы и школы. Жители фавел приобрели законные документы гражданства и получили право на голосование. Хоть дома фавел до сих пор считаются нелегальными строительствами и никакими налогами не облагаются, все жители фавел платят за электричество проведенное местными властями. Раньше провода просто накидывались на рядом стоящие электрические столбы и электричество использовалось нелегально. Теперь же на каждом доме висят счетчики и каждый житель фавел гордо (как сказал гид) платит за услуги. Так же в фавелах проведена канализация, в большинстве домов есть телевизор и холодильник, DVD плеер, стиральная машина, а у 12% населения есть компьютер. Средняя продолжительность жизни в фавелах возросла на столько что стала опережать среднюю продолжительность жизни более богатых слоёв населения. Одна из главных причин этому это, конечно, улучшение медицинского обслуживания, а так же постоянный спорт, ведь жители фавел живут на высоких холмах, а чтоб дойти до своего дома приходиться много ходить пешком.
Заглянув в один из домов

Площадка детского сада

Фавела о которой идет речь в знаменитом бразильском фильме Cidade de Deus существует реально и так ж находится в Рио. Сама фавела так и называется - Cidade de Deus, но на данный момент от фавеловского поселения уже почти ничего не осталось благодаря государственному проекту снесения фавелы и перенаселения ее жителей на окраину города.

Неожиданный вечер самбы в фавеле

И наверное мои описания были бы не совсем закончеными без описания вечера самбы в одной из фавел. Традиции самбы зародились именно там, а если быть точнее, то истоки жанра восходят к традиционным религиозным церемониям, привезенным в Бразилию африканскими рабами. Клаудия (мама Бруно) предложила всем пойти на вечер школы самбы, на что все согласились, представляя себе какое то шоу для туристов ни о чем не подозревая. Когда вечером мы подъехали к клубу школы самбы на машине, я ужаснулась. Было темно, на спупеньках клуба сидели бандитовидные парни, вокруг была грязно и жутко, и все это никак не выглядело безопастным. Я подумала что Клаудия просто ошиблась адресом выбрав совсем не то заведение и была уверена что сейчас машина развернется и мы поедим обратно. Оказалось что посещение такого заведения давно было ее мечтой. Мы заплатили за вход, вошли, и нас встретили недоумевающие взгляды местных посетителей, официантов и охраников, на что Бруно родители сразу поспешили объяснить что большинство из нас иностранцы и всего навсего пришли посмотреть как правильно танцевать самбу. Оказалось что в мы первые туристы которые пришли к ним в клуб и приняли нас очень тепло. Нас посадили на самое лучше место напротив сцены и даже объявили о нас по микрофону перечисляя все страны из которых мы приехали. Заиграла живая музыка местных музыкантов играющих на всевозможных мне незнакомых инструментах, на сцену стали выходить местные певицы на удивление с очень хорошими голосами, а позже местные посетители стали выходить и танцевать самбу. Невероятно, но не только женщины, а так же и мужчины очень хорошо двигались, зовя нас одного за другим танцевать вместе с ними. Наша самба была далека до их самбы, но самим им это, видимо, очень нравилось и каждый пытался научить нас правильным движениям. Нам принесли кайперинью (более крепкой я еще нигде не пробовала) и через некоторое время нас не нужно было тянуть танцевать, мы больше не стеснялись, а сами всех зазывали. Больше всех посетителям клуба понравилась Елена, именно ее они обнимали и фотографировали больше всего, а на прощание даже подарили сувенир в виде Бразильскои майки.
Клуб танцев самбы

Bolzano...

2010-08-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

I was recently remembering my latest stay in Bolzano. Seems was such a long time, but in fact it was just half a year ago. I remember one person told me that he never takes pictures of anything and doesn't like to keep any or look at them, because pictures are sad. Sad because this time has gone and those moments can't be returned. In a way I agree with him but I also find it very pleasant sometimes to look back and remember how good/bad/funny things were. Today I was thinking about my last time in Bolzano, those 5 months that I spent there from August to January. Our little studio flat, long walks with Mark in Talvera, views of mountains, little streets with numerous cafeterias with the best coffee, chats with Diana whom I was meeting almost every day and didn't even get bored of her. I had lots of free time and enjoyed Bolzano best I could. Who knows if I ever get a chance to do the same. I love where I am now too, but Bolzano is a very special town for me and I always will look forward coming back. Some random pictures and memories of time in Bolzano

Street where we used to live

Brazil

2010-08-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

It was a real headache to book tickets to Sao Paolo. Sure, if only we could have done it 5-6 months in advance there would have been much more choices. But we weren't even thinking about going there as we just started working. I personally wouldn't even think of taking holidays if not one of the girls in my work place who started working 1 month before me would take a long vacation. No one had any problems with that. So I thought why not to do the same. Why I am going anyway? I have a good reason. Katia and Bruno are getting married and Brazil is the place where it is going to happen. It's probably easy to guess, I haven't ever been to a Brazilian wedding and am quite excited to see how it is. And not only that! We get a chance to travel and see Brazil. How cool is that!

Events

2010-08-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

August 27-30 Barcelona!
September 11-12 Paris!!
October 7-23 BRAAAAAAZZZZZZIIIIIIILLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-08-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

Today in the morning Valdemaras has shown us a very nice path along the Thames. We didn't know this path was within a convenient walking distance from our house (25 min). Valdemaras likes to explore London on foot and he probably already knows more places in London than we do. We went all the way to the Tower Bridge, found a nice cafeteria with some tables outside with a view to the bridge and ordered a cappuccino with croissant. Mark was getting bored sitting in his pushchair, so we let him walk around and explore cafeteria. Cafeteria's doors and windows were made of glass and at some point Mark who wanted to run into cafeteria ran into the glass door. Was quite funny, he didn't hurt himself much but was really surprised.

My work

2010-08-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

I still haven't boasted in my blog how much I love my new job. Andrejs hears this every day for about probably 10 times and I think he is already sick of hearing that. I am so glad and really found a perfect job for myself. It's quite a small company and my work is all about software development, but it's very relaxed, friendly, helpful and has a great atmosphere. For now there are some new technologies I can learn and a project I am working on is challenging and I am glad I have to make an effort and have an opportunity to learn new things. I just hope it all works out well for me in the near future and I adapt well.

Work location is good enough to come to work within 30 minutes, which is quite close. It's just 15 minutes by bike, but I am not a biker(something worth considering). So, anyway... Andrej's work place is 20 minutes away from mine, which means if we walk 10 minutes towards each other we can meet for lunch, which is what we sometimes do. We usually go to an Old Spitalfields market, which is exactly in he middle between our work locations and it's a great place for lunch. And as this is a business area and working people are getting hungry during lunch time market is full of food courts. Just any food you like! I was very surprised none of my colleagues are ever going there.

Me and Mark

2010-08-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

For already about 2 months Mark is going to a local nursery. In UK nurseries are a very common option of childcare. You can bring your child at any age in there and nannies will take a proper care of your child. Number of children for each nanny ranges between 3-5 depending on child's age. Mark was 14 months old when he first started going there and was one of the oldest kids in his group. Now nannies decided Mark should go to the group of older kids (2-3 years old) which he did already for the whole week. I am amazed how quickly he got used to this environment. Apparently communicating with older kids makes him happier. It's probably because he can get more attention from older kids rather than of his own age or younger who are more closed at this age and not interested in particular in expressing interest towards each other.

Papa

2010-08-09T15:03:00.000-07:00

My father died 3 weeks ago and his death was shocking to many and I can't make myself believe this did happen. I knew there is a high chance he might die because of his condition but I always had a feeling it's going to be alright no matter how difficult his heart operation was. I just thought he is not that kind of person who would die, he had a strong personality and was incredibly enthusiastic. I thought anyone but not him! Then I had a phone call and I was told that he died. I feel so pity for him for all the things he was planning to do, things that still were waiting for him. He was a special person in my life and loosing him isn't easy, and there are still so many things I haven't told him, many places we haven't gone together. Every day I am trying to imagine how I could talk to him and tell him about things happening to me, listen to his stories, and I know there is no point, but I can't help it. I am alright, however, in general, life still goes on...

A very intence match

2010-08-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

A good day

2010-08-08T03:04:00.000-07:00

We had a very nice day yesterday. I haven't been to the city for a while and getting out after some time was quite exciting. We started by visiting Waterloo street market, which I never seen before. Maybe it is temporal, or maybe just never noticed it. It's not very big and they sell mostly food there (or only food) from different regions of the world. Andrejs had a kebab with main ingredient Italian rice arancini. I had a bite and that was so good. I must learn how to make good arancinis myself.

On Trafalgar square we went to a National Portrait Gallery. I am a member of this gallery and pay 45 pounds each year for membership which for some reason doesn't give much of advantages. Lately most of un-free exhibitions became very small and totally boring. I probably will wait until the end of this year and unsubscribe. On the other hand, free Best portrait award 2010 exhibition is absolutely amazing. First time I found out about it when I just came to London in 2008, I visited it and was amazed. Every year best contemporary portrait paintings competition takes place and best portraits from all over the world get selected and placed in National Portrait Gallery.

We had a fulfilling lunch in American diner called Ed's easy diner. We didn't order much but portions were huge. It's the first time I went to American-type diner since my trip to US long time ago. Andrejs ordered Banana-peanut butter cocktail. We was given a glass probably of a size of a bucket and extremely delicious. I think this 1-person portion could feed 3, at least... And banana-peanut butter cocktail was something definetely worth trying! It's something Andrejs tried to do today at home by himself. He didn't really follow precisely the recipe, instead put ingredients he thought would go well. And it was still good!

I haven't seen Mark falling asleep like that

annoyed

2010-08-07T14:35:00.001-07:00

Several months ago I started creating our wedding book album and thought I copied it into external HD. It's almost a year since our wedding and I thought it's just about the right time to get back to complete it and order online. So I open my hard drive, looking for it, and realize there is nothing! It was never copied and no way to get it back.... More than weeks' time work is gone! I am frustrated, angry, annoyed and unmotivated... But I really want this album! I have to start from the beginning...

South east coast

2010-07-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

aWhen my mother was still in UK, we went to South-East England to see some places. I read online that south east seaside isn't that nice (except maybe Brighton and around), but I think it wasn't bad at all if you don't mind little stony beaches, which I don't. In some places is all white rocky beaches just like on the picture below, which is good to see and hike around. We aslo were drivin through Dover which is a major ferry port facing France. You could see same white rocky coastline of France from it and a funny thinsg is that we all recieved "Welcome to France" message from our phone providers.

Recent events

2010-06-27T11:31:00.000-07:00

Two days ago Mark took my mobile phone (I accidentaly left it on the edge of a table) and threw it into the loo. It was there probably for quite some time after we found it. Doesn't work now.

Today my mother washed her dress, ironed and put it on a chair that was right next to Mark's bath. Mark was having a bath and in a few moments, we even didn't notice how, the dress appeared in the water.

Mark 13 months

2010-06-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Mark those days is being more active than ever, but now we noticed that he can actually play by himself and sometimes doesn't even bother to look if are near. We also noticed that he enjoys playing with shaped cubes. There is a box with some shaped holes where you are supposed to put in different shaped cubes and he quite often matches shape to the hole and throws it in. When we see that we clap and that makes Mark feel very happy! He loves to watch cartoons. I find it really amazing. If he is angry or annoyed or wouldn't behave just let him watch cartoons and his bad mood is gone. He would go silent immediately and stare at the screen without moving. There are so many nice Russian cartoons online that we show to Mark. Mark isn't a football fan (yet), but he can also play football. Sometimes he goes against rules and touches the ball with hands!

Hot, hot, hot!

2010-06-22T09:53:00.000-07:00

Hot weather finally came to London. It's currenty 27 degrees and it would stay till at least the end of the weak (weather forecast promises). I am not a hot weather fan, but sometimes I enjoy it, expecially when there is no need to go to work. We haven't been to the seaside this year yet, but tomorrow we are planning to visit it. We have some places we want to visit in mind, but to plan the route and decide exactly where to go is somehow difficult, so I guess we will start going and decide on the way.

Settling

2010-06-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

Things are getting better and more stable. We both found jobs and a nice place to settle in for a year or so. In the next few days we are moving there with all our numerous boxes of who-knows-what things. I am really surprised how after living in London not even a year (August 2008-July 2009) we managed to get so much stuff. All this those boxes of things were in a storage place and I hardly can remember what is in them.

A new place we are moving in is perfect in terms of location. Very close to 2 beautiful and big parks. There is a street of pubs, cafes, restaurants, big shopping mall and food shops within a very convenient distance. Transportation is perfect too! And the most important thing is that we managed to find a nursery for Mark about 5 minutes away from our house. I just hope it works well for Mark and he will feel comfortable there.

Hyde park

2010-06-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

My mother who arrived to London a week ago visited Hyde Park with me and Mark. And as she is also a gardener who spends her weekends taking care of home-grown plants Hyde park was just perfect place for her. Every time we passed by some beautiful flower bush she would ask me to take a picture. So by the end of the day I ended up with lots of pictures of flowers. I didn't mind in fact. There also was an exhibition of famous elephants. There are over 250 of them in London streets right now which is a huge public art exhibition aiming to raise money for elephants throughout the world. So far I saw them in Hyde Park and South Bank.

2010-06-08T14:41:00.000-07:00

I am very confused those days. At one point I really want to go back to work (it' not like I have a good job offer or something, but still), like really really really and I feel pretty bored at home sometimes! I can't wait when I start developing something useful for some good company, being a part of a team and so on, and so on... On the other hand I feel like I am not ready to put Mark to nursery or to let some nanny to take care of him. Second option for me looks even worse. You might find me egoistic but I can't imagine that some unknown lady is spending time with my child while I am working all day long and being able to see him only late evenings :( It's just doesn't feel right. I am really puzzeled... I just don't know what to do ;(((

Mark 12 months

2010-06-06T06:16:00.000-07:00

There is something special either about the book (Mark is holding in the picture below) or about cats that makes Mark laugh all the time he opens it. The book is all about colorful pictures of different animals. There isn't any reaction when Marks sees dogs, parrots, fishes or whatever is in the book. But when it comes to a page where is a picture of a cat Mark starts laughing!

I think it is impossible to find more active toddler than Mark, at least I haven't seen any. He doesn't stop wondering even for a second. Whenever there is a chance he grabs immediately whatever he can reach and starts squizing it in his little hands. Sometimes I forget that Mark can now reach things that are on the edge of the table (usually it's food) as he can stand quite well and mostly doesn't need any support. When I get back to the room I sometimes find juices, yohgurts, soft cheeses, pasta or rice on the floor and Mark who is happily playing with it. Probably it is needless to say that our carpet no longer looks the same as it used to be when we moved in.

Our trashbean is open all the time. And it is not because we leave it open, it is because Mark keeps opening it whenever there is a chance and throws things that he is holding in. We didn't notice it until once after giving him a plastic plate I noticed it's strange disappearence after just a few moments :)

Today we bought a full pack of baby safety tools that are usually put on the doors and drawers. Didn't think we will need them, but now I am sure we do.

2010-06-05T16:01:00.000-07:00

Today I found out about reuseless syndrome concept. It is a code that is useless over and over again

First steps

2010-06-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

Recently Mark started to make attempts to make some steps by himself withough holding to anything. 2 days ago it was 1 or 2 steps before he would fall, yesterday it was already 3 and look what he did today!

Edinburgh

2010-05-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

In the evening we arrived to Edinburgh. I frankly speaking don't like any of the pictures I made there so I wan't bother showing them. Just one :) Edinburgh was voted the most desirable city to live in the UK in terms of quality of living. I can understand that. Even from the first glance it seemed quiet, cultural and very friendly, but I wouldn't say less expensive than London. But on the other hand I was just a tourist, what do I know? If I ever go back to Scotland Edinburgh will be my first destination. I would love to visit a Castle of Edinburgh and many other museums, also hang out in some nice pub enjoying a pint of beer. This time all 3 of us were very tired for that and prefered to get a long sleep before heading back home.

Isle of Skye

2010-05-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

My favorite place of Scotland - Isle of Skye. We didn't visit any castels or museums on this island, we simply drove around it passing by small villages and stopping for a short meal or a coffee.
I would love to return one day there to do some hiking, maybe when Mark is bigger :)

Eilean Donan castle

2010-05-30T13:32:00.000-07:00

When I think of a Scottish castle I imagine something like the castle on the pictures below. This castle was situated just a few km before the bridge to Isle of Skye and was a really great place whether you are here just for 20 minutes passing by or spending several hours there. There was a take away food restaurant with some really nice outside tables under inside garden trees with fantastic view to the castle and a lake. I wish I was hungry when we were there just to sit in this garden and enjoy all this beauty, but we absolutely weren't hungry and after hanging around for a bit continued our journey.

Mallaig and all the way to Skye

2010-05-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

Little town Mallaig in the West of Scotland wasn't of much exceptional beauty, but I am glad we missed a ferry to Isle of Skye and had a chance to get a little familiar with it. At the beginning we couldn't find any B&B as it seemed like all houses were full of tourists (who probably also were on the way to Isle of Skye) but after some time we found a free room. Our host told us a little about Mallaig and his big family (he has 6 children!) and a lifestyle of local people. Main source of income in Mallaig used to be fishing. People still fish a lot there, but fishing those days doesn't bring much income, instead people make B&B out of their houses and host tourists. During a tourist season Mallaig is a town from which you can take a ferry to many West coast islands, so in summer period harbour looks much more alive.

In the morning we had to miss our ferry ride again due to the fog which can last sometimes for a long time, so we decided we would rather drive around than wait an indefinite period of time.

Seagles are of cause expected to hang our near the sea coast, however it would be better if they would mind their own business. Just after they noticed we came with food they started to fly around with some crazy speed and send each other loud signals. If we pretened we didn't notice them they would fly lower, almost reaching our heads. If we would go on we would be left withouth dinner

As we had to drive all the way back the same route because there wasn't any other way to get to Isle of Skye, I thought that driving would no longer be that interesting. But on the way back we noticed many things we missed when driving forward. For example this little island.

And a Glenfinnan Monument (I have no idea how we could miss it) was to mark the place where Prince Charles (not current prince of Wales) raised his standard. We didn't come closer as entrance wasn't free and would take some time, instead we went on driving.

Scottish beauty

2010-05-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

Just after we passed Loch Lomond my favorite part of Scotland began. I was so impressed by local nature that we were stopping every ten minutes to enjoy wonderful Scottish landscapes. Our next detination was an Isle of Skye, and it would take us 3 hours until we would get to a ferry. It isn't much, but imagine when you stop every 10 minutes, 3 hours become something else. And we missed the ferry

Loch Lomond

2010-05-28T03:24:00.001-07:00

Before our travel when I was looking for the nicest places to see in Scotland word 'loch' was pretty much everywhere. If you are wondering what could that mean it's simply a Scottish name for a lake. And Scotland is very rich for very beautiful lakes and Loch Lomond is one of the biggest lakes there. It wasn't possible to go around this lake in one day for us, so we decided to pick up one little village called Luss nearby that lake and spend an early afternoon there.

Loch Lomond

In the town's main church at this time was a wedding ceremony with guests gathering around the it. The Great Highland Bagpipe is a traditional Scottish instrument and the guy on the picture was wedding ceremony musician. It is very likely you will meet many of this type of bagpipe musicians if you travel in Scotland. It is quite impressive - we met them even in the mountains. And the skirt-like kilt together with the other attributes of Scottish national outfit is not only worn by bagpipe musicians but also by other Scottish man.

Scottish style

Culzean Castle

2010-05-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

Culzean castle is considered to be one of the main destinations in Scotland (our trusted guide book said so). We arrived there late in the evening and as the castle itself was already closed for visiting we took a little walk around it and went down to see the sea coast which was very green because of some green plants growing right on the beach. Surprisingly, the castle also works as a hotel, but staying overnight there is pretty expensive. Culzean castle is also featured on a £5 note.

An interesting thing about UK banknotes is that in Scotland Pounds differ from the ones that are used in England. They are issued by the Bank of Scotland, look very different and while being widely accepted all over Scotland are unknown to many people outside it. When a seller in a coffee shop tried to give me a 10 pound Scottish note change which I found it very weird I refused to take it. Seller tried to explain that this note is a legal currency, which also sounded pretty suspicious to me :) In the end she just said she would give me an English 10-pound note.

Driving along west coast

2010-05-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

Driving along the west coast of Scotland was pretty impressive. In the Lowlands there were small rocks, quiet and very flat bay, stony and sandy beaches, little harbours, very small towns and villages and hills with domestic animals. The weather was still pretty English (or shall I say Scottish?), cloudy with little rain, but it didn't disturb to enjoy our little trip.

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