Postcards from London: Good morning Chelsea (Post-athon day 14!)

I've been to London several times, first when I was nine, I still remember the cold, the food and the Disney Store.

But I had never had the chance to walk down the King's Road and to get lost in Chelsea.

There was a time, before my mouth went all radical on me where I could eat and taste solids, and enjoy a great brunch, when I could speak and not sound like a 5 year-old or a drunken homeless (I am not sure which of the two is more accurate).

 Focus M, focus! As I was saying, we started our morning stroll down King's Road (so gameofthrony!) and even though is was misty at first, the weather was amazingly nice for a weekend in late November.

On the random side, during our walk we came up a very funny Canadian guy who recognised us for our chit chatting and told us he was the first Canadian to import Spanish clementines to Canada, awkward conversation, a few laughs and he kept walking and do did we.

We walked and walked, past the National History Museum and several other museums, rows of houses all neatly painted, better decorated and framed with luxurious cars, and started to feel hungry, mmmmm what can anyone do on a Sunday morning but to enjoy brunch? Nothing, just enjoy brunch.

So there we went to PJ's, where I had my last solid dishes in days: Eggs Royale with smoked salmon (just like eggs benedict but with salmon instead of ham), and dessert for 6. I still remember that apple crumble and smell the cinnamon and the walnuts...

I am starved. The only good thing about this tooth ordeal is knowing I will get rid of the few pounds I put on over the summer.

We all need to find some solace don't we?

Such is Life

Postcards from... London (Post-athon day 11!)

Hello darlings, how lovely yo see you all again.

I am going to be a little naughty and say I am consistently publishing posts, since yesterday I made it to post something even if it was something with little consequence.

As I said yesterday, I spent the weekend in London visiting a friend. It's been a great weekend, shopping laughing, chatting, eating and chatting a little more, and shopping a little more.

 After a few weeks listening to Christmas carrol's at work, the sight of Christmas decorations filling the streets quenched for a little while my thirst for Christmas.

South Kengsinton and Chelsea offered a beautiful picture at seven p.m. when we made it back home full of shopping bags, exhausted and stressed thinking how on earth would we be able to fit all the stuff we got in our tiny easyjet friendly suitcases.

There was a stop we couldn't miss, Hamley's! and it was full of Christmas Legos!!

I behaved very well in the morning and tried to spend moderately, but then I went to Urban Outfitters and I went a little crazy... so crazy that on the way down from the first to the ground floor I had to stop by the cashier to return a t-shirt... that made me feel a little better, but still, this weekend was not the best in saving terms. I have decided that January will be the start of some serious saving new habits, my new year's resolutions are going to be very very interesting!

I will be back with more London pictures soon! But today is election day, and there is some very important stuff going on right now for is 46 million Spaniards.

I have to admit I missed you all, now I'm back! and I promise to look for the damn email address to post from my bb.

Such is Life

Postcards from Russia - The name game (Post-athon day 6)

Ok, maybe you are wondering when I find the time to write so many posts now and why, if I have so much time to write, why don't i do it more often. Well, it's Saturday and this is the third post I'm writing today. And I still have another one to do at least before I can relax a little. Jeeezzz, the life of a regular blogger is exhausting.

Anyway, my point, Postcards from Russia is here, fifth post dedicated to this country, and maybe not last, cause the week I spent there left me full of posting ideas.

Today I want to play a game with you all, the name game. Cyrillic is an alphabet very similar to greek, and once you've seen it for a couple of days you can actually read it with some ease.

Once you know what a PECTOPAH is, the rest is easy.  It's actually funny to walk about the streets of Moscow articulating letters as you read them. Russians may think we tourists are idiots, but we tourists feel very intelligent when words start comming out our mouths and make sense. Cause Russian has many words that sound like a mix of Greek and latin, and I don't know what else

I made a selection of the best known brands worldwide and offer you to play the name game. Can you guess them all?

 Most of them are easy, with the giant M and the little syren, the last two are a bit more difficult, but I am sure that at least my friend Agnes will know. I would be very dissapointed if she doesn't.

I am officially exhausted. An this post only ensures I have posts till Tuesday... This is going to be hard... Why do I put myself through this?

Such is Life

Postcards from Russia - The Tzars saw it coming (Post-athon day 1!)

Summer is now very far away, and I am not very good at remembering details, so I'll be quick.

Russia 1917, the last members of the imperial family are driven away from Saint Petersburg and gave rise to one of the most popular 20th century legends, Anastasia (I may have watched the 20th Century Fox movie at least a million times).

But I digress. The purpose of this post is to show, that sometimes you can, or at least, you have to see certain things coming (like a mass of raging proletarias who want to send to to hell).

Here's a story:

Tzar: "My dear daughter, here's a palace in the center of Saint Petersburg as a wedding gift"
Princess: "Thanks Daddy, but I don't like it".
Tzar: "Why darling?".
Princess: "I hate the view!"
Tzar: "But why? It is a lovely view of the square, and the church on the other side is magnificent".
Princess: "Oh, but there is that statue of you in a horse in the center of the square".
Tzar: "sure, and?"
Princess: "The horse's backside is the first thing you see when you look out the window".

And that is the story of how one of the hundreds of palaces in Saint Petersburg has always been empty.

And here's another story:

Summer, Saint Petersburg, some time in the XIXth century (yes I am that accurate with historical facts). The tzar and his family relocate to their summer palace 29 km away from their hundreds of palaces of Saint Petersburg. Golden fountains that flow with the sound of music (even one dedicated to the tzar's favourite dog), a channel from the main fountain to the sea, a yet smaller palace for those times were 40 rooms are not enough to get away from your family... and your subjects Mr. Tzar?

"Oh, they may be starving, but I am sure they will not be a problem".

Ha.

Who couldn't see that coming?

Postcards from Russia - Through my peephole

Thursday, last few days of holidays before going back to my quest for blue Narnian donkeys fluent in Chinese, and here I am, with some more Postcards from Russia while watching (ashamed to admit it) a please-shoot-this-obnoxious-brat average program on MTV.

And although I can barely blink while the teenage brat screams at her mother for giving her a $67,000 car at the wrong time, I really feel, as the sensible adult I am, I should stop paying attention to the TV and get to the point of today's post.

A Russian crane

A peek on Russia's day-to-day life. Sure I did all the touristy stuff, paid my repects to Mr. Lenin's tiny body and all, but while doing that my camera got some glimpses of what lies beneath, a country struggling to adjust to capitalism and free market. I have said it before and will repeat it here, never have I seen so many supercars parked close to prefall of the Iron Curtain Ladas, petrol tycoons and other stuff mobsters drinking vodka in 5 star hotel halls while their security personnel eye you poor tourist suspiciosly (no kidding) and just a couple of blocks away workmen carrying put their jobs in the poorest conditions.

After last summer's trip to Romania I thought I had seen enough of Eastern Europe to get the idea of how ex-communist countries are facing the twenty first century. I was wrong, Russia has that same bitter taste but in this case, the mix of the super rich and the super poor makes the place a lot more interesting for the blogger eye. 

I spent a full five minutes watching the works outside Mowcow's Red Square. Please look at the pictures with full attention, the sequence is hilarious (and unsafe).

Am I getting too serious? I think I am! This is new... Anyway, just wanted to give some text to this pictures. Hope you enjoy them. Again, more to be found in my Fb page, only for friends!

Next on Such is Life: Postcards from Russia - The Tzars should have seen it coming!

Postcards from Russia - Such great hights

I've learnt quite a lot of things about Russia lately, its recent and not so recent history, its people and their traditions.

Capitalism, free market and Perestroika have had a somewhat disfunctional way of becoming part of the daily life of Russians, big fat cars mingle with groups of women dressed in black,old men playing chess in the middle of the street and women wearing the most unbelievable high heels one could ever manage to walk on.

- "Let's do the shopping, darling".

- "Sure, dear, i just need to put my comfy shoes on".

Seriously, I bet half the money in my purse (0,76€) that Russian hospitals have the highest rate of ankle injuries among female patients between the ages of 17 and 35 in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD.

Unbelievable.

I therefore undertook the task of taking pictures of all the Russian women wearing appaling heels that I could, and trust me, it was a difficult task to try and take the picture without their enormous mobster boyfriends turning my humble digicam (as in Digimon! but digicam) to tiny sparkling metal pieces (which explains why most pictures are either blurry or twisted).

High heels walking across Moscow's Red Square's irregular pavement make one believe impossible is nothing, of course then you watch this impossibly tall women lose balance and can't help but imagine an average Moscovite ER filled with women carrying one broken high heel shoe in one hand, ankle throbbing.

Of course I have not checked statistics on Russian hospitals, but I have been witness to some very common collateral damages that come with wearing heels through impossible pavements. As you walk along any Russian street you can perfectly hear the very particular clang of lidless heels announcing the arrival of an impossibly tall Russian female, and of course you are correct in that assumption. Here she comes, accompanied by her mobster boyfriend. Camera out, picture!

It hit me as something quite surprising when I discovered this sign at the entrance of Saint Petersburg's Ermitage museum. You can take pictures everywhere, ruin a beautiful Rafael or Leonardo taking pictures but please refrain from ruining the floor with your high heel shoes!!

I pitied them, suffering all day long... I pitied them even more when I learned the reason behing those shoes. Our tour guide in Moscow was a young girl in her twenties who gave us the plainest answer to this quizz: "We wear this shoes to get good men". I really hope she is wrong... Alas, she is one Russian woman, and they are millions treading down the heart of that country. They are likely to have their own reasons.

This is the winner as far as hight goes

I'll leave you now, London's calling, and I have a plane to catch. I plan to have some New Age fun with a vintage feel while I take pictures of the London fields looking through my pair of empty frames, why you may wonder, well, cause being a dickhead's cool, and of course, cause Such is Life!

P.D.: More pictures can be found in my fb page, only for friends!

Postcards from Russia - Moscow and the defenders of the land.

Hey there!

Red Square (Moscow)

Just returned from a holiday in Moscow and Saint Petersburg with my camera full of pictures (yet too many) and even more things to share with you.

Curious place, with curious habits and curious people to say the least and nearly 500 pictures I will not bother you with, just my personal favourites. Today, my take on the Russian authorities.

I suppose Russians will be used to their huge hats but to me they looked like something brought from the past.
The truth is, I felt carried a couple dozen years back while passing their way. It doesn't help that at least 8 of them permanently watch over Lenin's preserved corpse during opening hours or that they make a very odd yet fun looking "dance" while changing guards at the tomb of the unknown Russian soldiers. Even their own "kin" watched them curiously as three soldiers lifted their legs and hit their waepons while maintaining a difficult balance.

The walls of the Kremlin (Moscow)

During the weekend dozens of young cadets (recently graduated by their looks) filled the streets of Moscow leaving some very fun and odd pictures. Walking with their girlfriends and their impossibly high heels (post in the oven in this regard) or just walking along the Red Square with their proud mothers, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, nieces, cousins...



I started to feel too touristy and decided to stop taking pictures, until the morning after, when I came by this:

Smile boys!

More to come on Such is Life's trip to the other side!

Enjoy your summer!

Such is life.

Postcards from... Budapest for Blackberry

Crisis over, Bb functioning perfectly and time to look back to my holiday in Budapest.

Some facts about the city include the oldest metro railway in mainland Europe, the third largest Parliament building in the world and the place of birth of the inventor of the "biro" or ballpoint pen, Sir Biro László József.

As I walked about the city I came up with some very impressive sights and others not so interesting but beautiful. Truth is, as I went through the pictures just a minute ago, I realised most of them were taken in a 60º angle with the ground, if not 90º, therefore, I've spent most of my holiday looking up.

And these, appart from some serious losses of balance, are the results, I've been trying to decide whether I should explain every caption and bore you with the details of the pictures, but finally concluded I want to gain readers, not lose them, and considering what I missed just the other day in Budapest (read below) I might as well keep you all happy.

So here are some of my favourite takes at Budapest with my Bb camera:

The Danube bank, city of Pest:

Buda Castle district:

 Liberty Bridge:

 Anonimus:
 Fun fact? If you touch this guy's pen you become a better writer, guess when I found out? Five minutes ago when I was looking up some fun facts about Budapest (just like the thing about Mr. Biro). Of course it didn't pop my mind to touch the shiny pen just for fun and thus improve my writing skill not even wishing to...

Detail of scary horse in Heroes' Square:

The dome of St. Stephan from below and in between:

Applied Arts museum, an unexpected surprise:

Also, here's is the proof that, just like Sheldon Cooper, I would have made an excellent elf:

Just as I announced in my "Hungarian update", this is my first attemp at Archery (Second target from the right, arrow in the white zone).

Just for the record, yes, all pictures are mine, which is a novelty!

Hope you all had a great time on your Easter holidays (if you had any).

I shall enjoy a last day of freedom before going back to my quest of blue narnian donkeys fluent in chinese.

Such is Life!