life is great...

...he said, coughing incessantly. No, really, it is! There are so many places to visit, so many sounds to absorb, million aromas to tickle your nostrils, countless imageries to flash before your eyes. Stockholm is coming up this weekend; the flight tickets for Thailand arrived yesterday while we managed to draft the plans for the 3 weeks I'm going to spend there; the tickets for the Dream Theater concert are lying on my desk at home; I managed to find people interested in going to Cirque du Soleil, next year in January, but you have to book these things in advance; I might go to see Jamie Cullum; the ice skating event in Streatham and then Barcelona and Lake District. So many things that you won't do once you get older. Now is the time, cease the day, go explore, go play! And if you need a more technical and first hand emotional argument of why you shouldn't worry too much about the future and live now, go read Marco's blog. He has a posting about that. If you still need convincing!

Coming back to the present and to the immediate yore, I must tell you about the film I saw yesterday. Don't laugh, hear me out. It was called "Pride and Prejudice" and it's based on a novel with the same name of Jane Austen. Before going to see it, I was shuddering at the prospect. I was hoping for a muse to gently help me fall asleep and soothe the whole experience. But no muse deigned set her eyes on me and in the end, there was no need for it anyway.

The film was surprisingly good, clearly an adaptation of the novel not an exact transposition of it into images. And you realised that very soon as the whole audience would burst into laughter. Something unexpected for a victorian atmosphere on the hills of old England. But it was funny, sprinkled with british humour - at some point I was thinking they've overdone it and it was a comedy, all of the sudden.

But it was all moderated by some overly emphatic shakesperian dialogues, which I must admit I didn't like. It should still be a reflection of a bygone era, although it was difficult to imagine normal people talking like that. It was reserved for poets and magicians! But don't get the wrong impression, it was just a dialogue or two, I am exaggerating as it sounded like the grinding of the teeth to my ears.

Another impressive aspect was the photography, it just settled the score for me. The photography of the film was very good I thought, with some lyrical moments where the photography director unleashed all her repressed creativity. I am very passionate about photography and I think I know a thing or two about it, so I'm confident about my appreciations (sheesh, he's such a modest boy!).

The actors were a bit disappointing, with one exception: Donald Sutherland. He was just brilliant and I wouldn't be too surprised if he was nominated for an Oscar for the best supporting role. He was the gray haired father.

All in all, it was a great film, pigmented with good humour, emotional expression that doesn't descend into sloppiness, all wrapped up in great photography. Highly recommended!

I have 5 watches around me and they all show different time. My wrist watch, a cheap one, I must admit, but water resistant - which allows me to keep it on in the shower, shows 11:49am. Being cheap, I wouldn't be surprised if it drifted.
My mobile phone shows 11:48am, it's a Sendo phone, a cheap phone again (goes well with a cheap wrist watch, innit?). British technology and despite not recognising the SIMM card from time to time, it's alright, doing exactly what I want: voice, text and alarm. And probably nothing more. In fact, I don't care!
The timer on my BT phone lying on my desk shows 11:47am. I don't know how this monolithic phone works, I don't think it synchs with something central, although I just peeked at the one on the other desk, and it seems they've got their story right. At least between themselves.
The hands of the clock on the wall show 11:52am. It doesn't seem like high tech and I trust that one the least. But it's right in front of me, so I can't ignore it, I see it every time I raise my head.
And finally, the clock in the system tray, the Windows clock, shows 11:44am. No one trust Windows though, so I won't even bother taking it seriously.

So what's the time then? I reckon it must be 11:48 or 11:49 or 11:47. It's hard to say, thank god we're not a mission critical business. We're not enriching uranium either. We're just passionate software engineers, waiting for lunch every day at 12:00PM. That's why timing is even more important for us.

Enough about that. Yesterday we went bowling, celebrating Edyta and Alireza. It was their birthdays. It was great, but I must admit the sin of drinking alcohol. I don't shy away from such a vice normally, but this time I had the flu too. And guess what, I still have it, and it seems to me it wants to take vengeance for the impunity of consuming the forbidden liquid yesterday.
But bowling was great, I wish I could play every day. Hehe, yeah, that would be the right way to kill it. Kill a hobby by doing it every day. Call it work and there you have the whole picture.

I hope I recover though from this rebel virus, as the plan is to fly to Stockholm for the weekend. I imagine the place is a huge freezer, not exactly the right leisure-land when you're struck down with the flu. So, God of Good Health, I worship thee, please make this virus go away and I promise ... hmm ... that I shalt forsake thee until the next time I get sick again. At least I'm honest, right?

Excellent news coming from Eastern Europe today, Romania is scrapping its compulsory military system, from 2007, 1st of January. This is great news, not really that useful to me, but my father will be especially thrilled as he won't have to go to the military recruitment centre every year to tell those morons that I left the country and Yes, that means I can't serve in the army.

I think we finally realised that we have too many recruits competing to drive our 3 tanks and 2 russian fighter jets. Oh common, I'm kidding, we must have at least 5 or 6 tanks. And the MIGs are not that bad. When they don't crash!

Compulsory military service is a joke, no civilised country has something like that anymore. In an era of the nuclear bomb and highly sophisticated war technology (that fucks up only in practice, in theory still being perfect) it's ridiculous to think of winning wars by sheer numbers. It's the era of non-conventional wars too, of the guerrilla wars, of David and Goliath. And not surprinsingly, David takes no prisoners and prefers rocket propelled grenades these days. Goliath instead throws some more tons of napalm bombs Made in Taiwan and levels the ground (literally).

Ah the good old days when the wars were fought with the bayonet. It was either you or the other guy, may the best man win. It had something poetic in it. The gnashing of the bayonet hitting another, rending skin, crushing bones.
Today you die in a blink of the eye, they kill you remotely, without the last courtesy of allowing your past to flash before your very eyes or you crying for your mother for the last time. It's all gone in a microsecond, ashes to ashes...

Morbid, isn't it? :-)

You have to be a true computer geek to understand the exhilarating joy of catching a bug, especially when the bugger bugged you for two weeks at least, making your confidence plummet while you silently swear at the Quality Assurance smirky guy and imagine hundreds ways to end his misery. In his eyes it's all your fault, you screwed it up, it's because of you the company is not in Fortune 500 and he's not getting his bonus this year. As every year, in fact.
But the beauty is 10-fold when you realise the bug was not in your code, but in some old dusty component that everyone forgot it existed. Then you afford to relax and in your infinite generosity you even start to explain to everyone the problem, how you found it and what a genius you are, without actually spelling the word for them. Avoiding the finger pointing is your ultimate virtue. No doubt you're a modern Jesus and this is the tuesday of your ressurection!
Yes, that is my tuesday folks!

#@!$&^$#

Screw you blogspot!

I wrote a long posting for half an hour and then blogspot lost it as some cookie must have expired and I had to relogin. Evidently, all was lost. Don't you just hate stupid websites like that?

No other posting for today! Argh .. sweet revenge :-)

I managed to have an alcohol free weekend and it's all due to my being under the influence of influenza or flu, how it's called. Instead I had to drink orange lemonade on saturday and today, so that I've probably had 1000% my RDA (recommended daily allowance) of vitamin C. And still I'm sick. And ill, Ivika would add. My sickness is on-going, unlike my flu illness. She's very funny, isn't she?

Anyway, today I went with some friends to see Shakespeare's Winter's Tales at the Globe on the South Bank. The theatre was nice, very cosy, the experience was ... hmm ... ticked down in my experience handbook (nah, i don't tick things). However I must say I was a bit disappointed and realised that I prefer modern theatre better. Normal theatre! Not very abstract, my neurons don't like to be churned or made to ponder on existential topics. Or any sort of topics. They like to be entertained or kept in their sweet snooze. One or the other, the effect is the same.

All in all ... only reasons to be depressed - and tomorrow's monday too :-(

my sis, george and Retezat

My sister lives in Cluj Napoca, in Romania, the city where I studied for 4 years, in University. She's a law graduate, 3 years younger than me, her name Anca. Now she's working in Cluj. I haven't seen her for almost a year now. Here are some pics of her:

From left to right: My Sis, Mishu, Peter (my sister's boyfriend)

From left to right: George, Mishu's gf, Mishu, My Sis

Close-up: Peter and my sister

From left to right: Mishu, my sister, Mishu's gf, Peter

My sister and Peter, I know this trail, oh, I miss Retezat!

George is one of my university colleague and very good friend. He's been my friend since 1st year in university, actually one of my first new friends in university. He's a cool dude, he works as a software engineer in Cluj. He's also the webmaster of www.ski-in-romania.com. If you can read romanian, you can even have a look at his blog by following the link in the Links section on the right hand side.

Here's him, with orange cap, looking at the camera, mountains at his back



The reason I had to talk about them is that they recently took a trip to Retezat, a peak in Carphatian mountains, at the border between Transylvannia and No man's land (oops, I mean southern Romania). All the pictures here are taken from their photo documentary of the journey. You can find the full photo documentary on George's website: http://george.trace.ro/impressum/album.php?id=25. The descriptions are in romanian, but the title of the photo-documentary is "Dancing with the clouds".

Retezat is a very nice place, I should organise a trip there sometimes and take some of my friends there. You'll be stunned.

Retezat is also a natural reservation, you can't get in that part without a special authorisation, but, the part they've been to, it's not in the reservation. And it's beautiful. Romania is beautiful. We have a saying in Romania: "Beautiful country, too bad it's inhabited".

The Butterfly Effect was entertaining and nothing more. If I was to summarise it in one sentence, it would have to be: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem"
Good night!

I met Viv in Tai Tip Mein which is a very nice chinese restaurant right outside Elephant & Castle tube station. Alright, it's probably not the best area in the world ... actually it's been voted the ugliest round about in London, but it's on the list for redevelopment. What should I care? I'll be outta here in several months maybe.
She brought me the palinka which I couldn't taste yet, I'm still sick in case you forgot. But this kind of drink is something to share with your friends anyway. You drink and then fall asleep, unless a cardiac arrest gets the better of you.

Meeting Viv made me remember Symbian, where I used to work until May this year. Viv still works there in the Multimedia team, I used to work in Base/Kernel. That's just for people there to recognise her more easily hehehe :-)
It refueled my disbelief about the Offshore Development Centre, located in the sunny (when it's not swept by monsoons) India. They're just useless our reputable colleagues from the sunnier shores. I worked with them closely while in Symbian, I even travelled to Bangalore. They're very friendly people, very nice to talk to, very helpful too. But, as engineers ... how should I put it diplomatically ... hmm ... they suck, that's it! It's a waste of time and money for Symbian but noone is concerned to have some metrics that measure the usefullness of the infallible ideas that dwell in the heads of upper management.

One thing about indians, a cultural thing, it's that they can't say No. Whatever they say, it's gotta be a Yes. And then they screw up silently. I tried to convince Viv to start up a blog, you would be laughing out loud if you read some of her experiences with the ODC. That's unless you're very emotional and you start crying.

Anyway, nothing else about Symbian, except that finally, this year they seem to be on their way to break even. Congratulation! Despite all the (excuse my french) fuck-ups, it's still a nice company, I miss it in a way. But let me assure you I don't cry at night over it.

Enough about work ... I'm stuck at home on a friday night, it's outrageous, I think it's my first friday to be stuck at home in a long time. Damn you common cold!
So I'll soon watch The Butterfly Effect courtesy of Mr. Marco, cheers mate, have fun in Madrid, I bet you do!

No ideas about the poet yet?
Here's another poem, same poet, just before I leave:

Like vast tears of blood
Leaves from the branches flow -
And slowly the bloodied dusk
Penetrates the window.

Over the blue hills
A moon of blood rises,
The lake looks like blood,
A deeper red always.

At the window, in the sick
Dusk, a girl coughs.
And now her handkerchief
Looks like the flowing leaves.

It's called "Dusk". Laterz!

So, darling, I've come once again ...
Though can hardly, today, get about -
Open the piano and play me
A song of the dead.

And if I collapse on the carpets
In the drawing-room silent and gloom, -
You keep on playing, my darling,
Slowly, in monotone.

The poem is called Worn Out, I'll let you guess the poet's name, up for the challenge? With google it shouldn't be too hard, right? :P
No silly, it ain't me!

But that's how I feel today, I'm stuck with flu, a decay of the body, I called in sick and listening to Dream Theater's last album now, which, maybe not surprisingly, sounds so morbid today. So go on, guess who the poet was and we'll take it from there.

photos - some of my friends

Ali and me :

Me and Ivika:

Me and Alireza:

Tina and me:

Uttam and me:

Me and Analis:

From left to right: Me (who else), Christina, Lilian, Claudia, Ali

Me, Lilian and Christina:

groggy

It's official ... I caught a very annoying cold. Sore throat and the prospect of it aggravating as I'm at work (imagine that!). Procrastination is so much more difficult when you're actually sick (and I mean physically sick not just sick of work) because your natural shit-o-meter is severely deranged. There's only so much shit you can take.
No sickie pulling yet though. Maybe tomorrow. It would be my first sickie at this company, but there's always gotta be a first time for everything, right? They say the first time is the most difficult one. I'll probably quietly enjoy the grimace on my boss' face when I'll tell him I might be off sick tomorrow. My hoarse voice (the result of prolonged suffering, by no means a natural seraphic gift) should do the trick by itself.

Yesterday I went to the gym and afterwards I met Marco and we went for a sheek kebab in Tooting and then a drink. He's a nice chap, by far the funniest german I've met. And one of my most reliable friends. You can read his blog by following the link on the right hand side.

There you can read about how he grew up in a mountainous village in Argentina where his father was enjoying the benefits of a low profile. :-) (I'm kidding)

snippets

...yesterday I went for a drink with 2 great people (names undisclosed at this point) and we had great fun. I feel that slowly I'm starting to make some real friends, you know ... reliable people that give a damn as opposed to most people just taking the piss. You don't want to get me started on this...

...today I booked the tickets for the Dream Theater concert for the 25th of october, going with Ali, Kaisa, Sebastian and Bjorn. It's gotta be good, now I only need to find my old Dream Theater t-shirt, give it a wash and let the head banging begin...

...Lilian got a job, which is great news, it means she'll be staying in London, she reminds me of Carmen's bubbly personality, only she has more energy than Carmen (Carmen, if you read this ... sorry! sorry! - it must be because Lilian is brazilian :-) - hehe, she'll abandon me in the middle of Thailand somewhere now :-)...

...tonight is gym evening, Marco is not coming to the gym, preserving his energy for Madrid, well, I feel like I'm coming down with something too, it must be the moody changes in weather. Anyway, we still meet at 9pm to go have a bite, maybe a drink, our wednesday ritual. I hope I won't get chatted up @ gym...

...ok, the best time of the working day is here ... LUNCH ...

tuesday news

Hey, this is my 4th day already of blogging, so I've made it, gone past the 3 day barrier (if you don't know what I'm talking about read this). So I've done it, now I can quit! :-)

I feel very cheerful, in a great mood today. I don't know why, being a tuesday makes it even more inexplicable. It can't be from the coffee, although that might have contributed to it.

One good news I got by email yesterday was from a romanian friend of mine, Viviana ... she brought me some "palinca" (that's a romanian tequilla like drink :-) from home. Well, it's not from my region, as she's a southerner, I'm transylvannian, but nevertheless it's real romanian thing. That's just great, she's one in a million, I told her about palinca couple of months ago and she didn't forget. We used to work together, she's a lovely girl. By far the friendliest southerner I've met :-)

Another good news is that I won't be going to Barcelona alone, but with two brazilian girls, Mariana and Analis. They speak spanish too, which is a relief, not that I wouldn't be able to get around, but it's so much nicer when you have someone speaking the local language. I must admit I didn't expect anyone to come with me, when I posted on MUIL. It's a nice surprise.
Here's a picture of Analis (blonde) and Mariana (brunette) from a party 2 weeks ago:

They'll get there on friday, I'll join them on saturday morning (I can't fly on friday evenings, I work too late :-(). We'll be staying at Kabul hostel. I gotta learn more about Barcelona prior to the departure.

That's about it folks, I'll put my earphones on and indulge in the sweet muzique of Katie Melua. She's georgian, 21 years old and just brilliant. Highly recommended if you like a mixture of jazz and blues.

why me?

Well, today at the gym something weird and out of ordinary happened. Something that wakes you up from the lonely world of mentally counting your countless sit-ups, press-ups and whatever other "ups" you might be up to.

Someone talked to me.

It was strange as this guy came next to my walking machine (how's that called by the way?!) and I said ... oh no ... not right next to me, go away, give me some space. Of course, I was quiet, maybe gasping with effort but you're suppose to do these things in a gym. I also played by the rules and tried to avoid eye contact, not to be rude. Ahem! And the guy said "Hi"! Double Ahem with vodka and ice! An involuntary reaction started in my brain left hemisphere and before I could think properly about it, I heard myself saying "Hiya" and then looked away focusing on my sheer physical effort.

"Must be gay", I said to myself and then instantly I felt sorry for myself. What happened to me? I didn't use to be like that. It's this country that transformed me from a normal social being into a judgemental monster. Memories came to me in flashes, like that one time in Cluj when I was a student and I was coming back on the famous Piezisa (a street next to our student dorm) and a guy in a car passing by reached out and try to slap my arse, narrowly missing it. I knew that moment and ever since how it must be like to feel like a piece of meat :-)
And then the flash was gone and another one came and went, when I was in Soho and there was a gay festival, and this guy bumped into me and like everyone bumping into people, he said sorry. But he also touched my hand from the elbow down to the wrist, a gentle touch like "how about me and you babe?", his eyes staring into mine like looking for a confirmation or a disapointing blink of the eye. I laughed, I thought it was funny.

And then when I was in the changing rooms, I couldn't miss noticing he lingered a glimpse onto my naked body as I was showering. Geez luiz, you don't do things like these, it's like a secret allegiance between males ... you can't do that. The showers are the only place where eye contact is preferable, whatever you do, keep your eyes up. Otherwise you go in the history as being gay. I know, it's all macho shit, used to protect us from accepting our latent homosexuality. Or so psychoanalysts would say.

But the best was still to come. As I was dressing up, ready to flee the scene, he came to me and said something. At first my ears weren't hearing a word he was saying, too stunned to understand. Is he speaking to me again? He was. And the question was a simple one, although I didn't have the answer well prepared in advance and he had the upper hand by cornering me like that and using my surprise to his advantage. "How long have you been working out for?" It was a simple question, but my brain was still working on the probabilities of him being gay, so my mouth started mumbling "Couple of months, 4 months". He looked undeterred in his determination to go ahead with his plan and he said "Coz you have a great body".

Now this was too much ... There's one thing to say Hi, or even a furtive glance to my most hidden body parts. I can ignore that, I have a strong defensive mechanism. But "you have a great body"? I was about to frown and reply sarcastically "Beauty is inside mate" when it struck me. It was a compliment. It was just a compliment. I caught myself muttering "Cheers"! Cheers? Cheers? It's like you're a piece of furniture that looks good and you thrive on every compliment as it means you have higher chances of actually getting sold. Hmm ... maybe it's like that then!

He had the decency to leave it there and I hurried home a bit amused about the whole story.

So, we reached the disclaimer now. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with gay people, I'm a supporter of free choice, far from a homophobe, myself. But I'm not gay and not used to be chatted up. Coz you gotta admit it, "Hey, you've got a great body ... how long have you been working out?" ... well, that's quite cheesy.

Enough for now, I'm going to read for a while and hit the sack! Sigh, I can't believe it's still monday!

mundane monday

It's 11:23 on yet another monday, overcast as most of the time, nothing to look forward to, abandon all hope ye who enter. The mixed aromas and liveliness of Camden still fresh in my mind after yesterday - it was great. Just thinking about all that gorgeous food makes me hungry and reminds me I skipped breakfast today. Lunch is in 30 minutes, unless my colleagues decide to take their time and drag their feet. I hate them for that. Lunch should be at 12:00pm sharp, to avoid any confusions and any gurgling of the stomach.

Oh the beauty of office life *yawn*

I definitely need to change my job at some point, do something else, live somewhere else, in the sun somewhere, in real life, by the beach perhaps ... but with some mountains near by too, oh, waky waky ciprian. Well, anything to keep the minutes rolling forward closer to 12:00, closer to lunch. At the moment the sliding of time is frustratingly asymptotical to the hour of deliverance. Lunch, what beautiful sound, what a glorious promise, what an enlightening prospect.

Sigh, my boss just interrupted my reverie by asking for the timesheet and my weekly update report. You insensitive swine! Presumably he wants it all done before lunch, a distant glimpse now covered with a layer of thick beauracratic dust.

Geez, a lyrical monday, but still at the heart of it, a mundane monday nevertheless!

some more partying...

Well, it was saturday and it had to be more party, right? And it was in the same All Bar One in Tottenham Court Road, nice place, just that this time people could smoke downstairs. A disastrous decision but, no doubt, economically motivated. Who was there? Well, my old friend and ex colleague Mihai with his girlfriend Angel, I invited them there. Unfortunately I have no pics with them. Then my two best brazilian friends Lilian and Christina ... they always speak in portuguese and I always tell them "No portuguese, exercise your english"... they're the coolest brazilians I've met in London so far.

On the right hand side (above) there's the weirdest picture ever, me an Lilian, with Ali in the background. Now, isn't that scary kids?


On the left hand side there's a picture of Christina preparing a brazilian cocktail, hmm ... I forgot the name now ... Capirinha or something like that!

Who else was there at the party in All Bar One? Helder, a portuguese guy, I've only met him for the second time, I don't have a picture of him. Paul, english, I don't have a picture of him either, we played football yesterday together.
Claudia and Sebastian a braziliano-german couple were also there, a bit late (as usually :-) and a bit tired (ahem!). Sebastian plays football with us regularly. They're cool guys. Here's a picture of them:

A brazilian friend of them was there too, I haven't met before, she just arrived in the UK that night. I don't have a picture of her.
And last but not least ... my favourite estonian friend, Kaisa was there too. She puts ice cubes down people's shirts or trousers, a ... chilling feeling in a nice club. Here's a nice picture from the BBQ:

Oh, isn't it lovely? :-)

After All Bar One, we went to Bar 101, where we boogey a bit and we drank some more. It was all fun, and we managed to break some glasses as well hehehe ... lack of coordination is a serious problem when you're drunk, folks ... what else can I say?

O'ritey, I'll leave it here, I have to get dressed and go to Camden now. Smell ya laterz!

travel

Travel is the name of the game recently and october seems to be reserved for travelling. As I said the plan is to go to Stockholm on 1st and 2nd of October, stay in a hostel, Roberto is coming with me. The price for the flight was ridiculously cheap at 28.90 pounds. If you add 15-16 pounds for the accommodation, you settle the damage at 43-45 pounds. Not bad.

On the 15th and 16th of october I'm flying to Barcelona, staying in a hostel again (ah well, I'm a backpacker at heart). The flight was a bit more expensive than Stockholm, 60 pounds + 13 pounds accommodation. But Barcelona was on my TODO list for a long time.

On the 23th and 24th of october I'm going with www.heathrowhikers.org to Lake District for the weekend. That should be good, I need some fresh air in my lungs and being in nature. We're going to stay in a B&B, thank god, my memories of last camping in May in Wales were not that good. It was freezing cold and I managed to catch it.

But the biggie is in december, from the 3rd of december to the 28th, quality time in Thailand with Carmen, Luci and Ake. Can't wait ... I just hope I won't get sick, damn! The plan is to lay around on the beaches, try some sports (maybe windsurfing, that would be cool), snorkelling, a bit of hiking in the mountains in the north. And not to forget about the Full Moon Party on the 16th of december (http://fullmoonparty-thailand.com/)

I promise I'll take some pics and post them here! :-)

Well, I managed to catch the first film in the Brazilian Film Festival. Except for a very modern looking and awfully thin canopy, it was really outside. And it was blistering cold. After couple of false starts, due to either brazilian or british technologies failing like they do every day ... we had a successful start. Unfortunately I realised soon that the film was mediocre. The story line was hard to follow (I'm sure it all looked so much better in the script writer's head though), the characters weren't contoured or believable, the subtitles were crap, the photography was inexistant and the artistic value null. Maybe I was too generous to call it mediocre. To add to the beauty of it all, Beto Brant in the Q&A session proved to be entirely incoherent which sort of explained the total lack of coordination or sense in the film.
In addition to that, it was also a violent film, I hate violence, why do people think they can only trasmit something through violence. I think it's only bad directors or bad writers that recourse to violence or flashy effects to stun and shock the viewer. In a world of information, people need to be shocked in order to at least raise an eyebrow and draw some attention. It's disgusting.

Anyway, after the film, shuddering from the cold that got into our bones and lean body mass (no fat, ok?) we went for a curry and a glass of wine. We learn more about Brazil from our gracious guests. It was all nice and friendly, we were only 4 of us so we talked unrushed, maybe interrupted from time to time just by my ever present tasteless jokes (eg: if you wear kilts, do you wear bras too? now is that even a joke?). The food wasn't that good although allegedly the cook was featured in the Guiness book. For being the slowest cook ever, we joked.

Another good news is that Roberto is coming with me to Stockholm in 2 weeks time, so I'm not going alone. He booked the same flight and same hostel as me. Yiiha, can't wait. At 28.90 pounds for the flight and another 15 quid for the accommodation, it's quite cheap ... actually, between you and me, it was literally begging to be booked (sic). More details closer to the date!

the start

Let there be blog!
I've said that before and I've tried blogging before, so this is just (possibly) another 3 days attempt at blogging. I lose interest after that.

So this is me in the left, a picture taken 2 weeks ago at a brazilian BBQ.

What are the plans for tonight?
Go to a brazilian film festival (www.newbrasil.org) in Brick Lane, have a curry, a drink and then go home.

Geez, this is boring, how can anyone read this since I'm yawning while typing it. See, it's starting already ... 3 days, I tell you!