One of many tourist attractions in Barcelona are dancing fountains. They are located in front of Palacio Nacional, which can be reached by getting out at the Placa Espanya metro (tube) station. When my friend Magda came with 3 other friends we were desperate to see the show. So we went there, got of the metro and walk towards main fountains. There was no music and I remembered from old times, when I saw these show for the first time, that there should be a music and lights, hence we started to take photos, someone climbed the orange tree and even tasted oranges from it. Then by the time we reached the main fountains we realized that we managed to see some colourful water and make quite a few pictures, but people were going in direction of metro station rather than staying. This was a clue for us that something is wrong. However there was no music so we decided to wait for proper show. We waited and waited and after a few minutes we realized that the show finished when we were taking photos The lack of music was totally misleading and because of that we missed it completely.
Fortunately for me few weeks later my other friend Dima came and we went to see the show again. Then it was a proper one with the music. I even managed to record it, all of you who didn’t see it before can treat yourself with this video:
Everyone heard about flamenco. Also everyone knows that it’s a Spanish music and dance. Actually it was originated in Andalusia (part of Spain) and next adopted by other regions of Spain. While adopting this dance people started to experiment and now we have different types of flamenco. When listening to the music you discover that it’s integral part is Gypsy’s language. It’s because Arabs and Gypsies live in Andalusia around Spanish people so they were the one cultivating the flamenco at the beginning and their language lasted till this days in flamenco songs.
In Barcelona you can see flamenco shows in Palau Musica Catalana or Palacio de la Flamenco. I was at Palacio de la Flamenco and to my surprise I enjoyed it more than I was expecting it. I made some videos,so you could also see a part of the show. However seeing it with your own eyes is completely different thing. Hence if you ever have a chance to visit flamenco show don’t hesitate to go!
I cannot be further from being a football fan. If it wasn’t for my brother I wouldn’t probably know that something like football exits. Then I came to Barcelona and discovered that you cannot forget about football because every second person in the city wears the FC Barcelona shirt before the game and during the game you can hear people shouting and cheering their favourite team. It’s actually kind of fun to see them going crazy because Barca is winning. However after the game everything starts. People horn in their cars, scream on the streets and even ring the bells on their bikes. Usually it lasts till around 3am. I am lucky that by that time I am often finishing my things on computer and prepare myself to sleep. I just wonder why other people do not react. Is it possible that even older ones are still celebrating Barca’s winning?
Anyway the worse was about to start because of world champions league 2009. I had no idea that they started the championship, but screams till 3am every 2nd week gave me a clue that something bigger is about to happen So I turned on the TV and there it was, the final game of FC Barcelona vs Manchester United. I went on the balcony and saw that all my neighbours were watching this game. I thought ok let it be I will watch it too. After all I was curious what is this big fuss about. Barca scored 2 to 0 and they won! I was slightly excited but it was nothing compared to the people in bars and on the streets. Immediately on every balcony was someone screaming Barca! there were fireworks and this time the noise didn’t stop till 4am
I tried to capture part of the winning madness on camera and you can see it here:
Now you know that living in Barcelona means you must be FC Barcelona fan
Today is 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square massacre and of the end of communism in Poland. About Tiananmen Square everyone heard and know that the huge massacre took place there 20 years ago. But what happens when people want to celebrate such anniversary? Well… China is blocking most of the networking services and websites. Of course if you talk to Chinese they always say that there is no censorship in their country and now we have such a clear picture of how the things happen in there… I encourage you to read this article: “The Great Firewall of China Stands Tall, Still Not Unbeatable”
But this is not the end of today’s surprises. If you start reading Polish web-services you will find articles regarding Russian view of how the II world war started. Mr Siergiej N. Kowalow is writing in his article that everyone who knows proper history knows that Poland is the one to blame for starting the II world war, because it refused to give up some of its land to Germans. I read this and couldn’t believe that someone would even let publishing such a thing. Then I have decided to check weather it is true and surprisingly it was! On the official website of The Russian Federation Ministry of Defence you can find the article. Of course if you change the website language to English the sub-page with Russian “historical truth” is missing, why? Fortunately we can use google translate to see everything and here it is:
Russian article 2nd from the top I wanted to access it but I couldn’t, which hopefully is due to Russian reaction on these false accusations made by Mr Kowalow. However if you click on it using google translate you will find the translated version of an article.
Now let’s recall what really took place. On August 23 1939 Soviet Union and Germany signed a pact - Ribbentrop Molotov, which stated 10-years non aggression between Germany and Soviet Union. However there was also secret protocol attached to this pact stating the division of Eastern Europe into Soviet-Nazi spheres of influence:
Next on 1st September 1939 German army crossed the Polish border attacking from the west. France and Great Britain demended from Germany to withdraw the troops from Polish teritory, but they didn’t do that and both countries become in state of war with Germany. On September 17, the Red Army invaded eastern Poland, violating the 1932 Soviet–Polish Non-Aggression Pact. Soon Soviet Union and Germany reached agreed borders.
You can read more about the pact and what happened after invasion on wikipedia.
It’s been a while since I was writing here :/. Well in my defence I can say that this was a though semester at UAB and we had quite a few visitors. Apparently Spain and Barcelona seem to attract my family and friends more than Paris or Oxford. I am not surprised by that since I always wanted to live here, where the sun is always shining and troubles seem to be so far away. Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed, because sun starts to shine every single day from the end of May and the sea is cold even at the beginning of June.
Apart from that everything is great. I finished my exams!!! uuuhhhuu Finaly freedom
We even had some party celebrating our end of semester. You can find some photos here: photos
Ruzica (in blue dress) was our energy train. When everyone seemed to be exhausted from jumping singing and dancing she was still full of energy encouraging us to come back on the dance floor. Ezgi (in black leggins) cheered us up with constant smile on her face, Tugce (in jeans skirt) prepared a lot of good food so we could stuffed our faces with it Laura (in colourful shirt and beige pants) helped Tugce by bringing great cake and I brought karaoke It was so much fun to sing when no one is more than amateur, except for Ni who ruled in it. But again Chinese people do karaoke a lot so she had practised before.
We came back home around 5 in the morning happy and ready for summer holiday.
Just to break the routine I have decided to write about things that are relaxing and interesting I believe not only for me. Thus this time it will definitely be a girly post
Probably everyone heard about podcasts. These are short movies like on youtube, that you can download to your computer using iTunes. You simply install iTunes and you have both music and podcasts player. All you need to do is to find things that are interesting for you and subscribe. Next iTunes will automatically download all of them for you. After that you don’t even need internet to watch your downloaded findings, because they already are on your hard drive.
Personally I like ABC News which I think are even better than the famous CNN podcasts. Unfortunately, National Geographic doesn’t offer their podcasts on iTunes any more, however you can still watch them on their website. But lets get to the point. Lately I have discovered something that I guess 99% of girls will love! (I say 99% no 100% since there is always this 1% confirming the rule exception ) Ford models podcasts with make up and hairdresser tips. Mr Johnny Lavoy is a fantastic hairdresser, who within few minutes makes a gorgeous hairdo. For example he shows how to make Bridgette Bardot hair with only couple of moves. Also in the same category you can find make up tips. But for me the hair thingie is the best!!!
check it out: http://fordmodelshowto.blip.tv/#1754279 on the bottom of this linked page you can subscribe to iTunes!
Moreover fashion fans can find Gucci podcasts on iTunes (there is already fall winter 2009/2010 collection show online). In Fashon category there are also treasures like: TopShop, Chanel and Vogue plus many other cool channels ideal for relaxing coffee and glimpse in a comfortable armchair.
The apartment was great, but like every rented place it wasn’t so causy and it needed some details to make it feel warmer. We went to Ikea. Then we went to Ikea once more and now we can only smile looking at what we did.
Firstly, I wanted to change the guest room. It had yellow-white bedding with black dots and on the wall was hanging huge map of the earth. euuhhhh I couldn’t stand it so the first thing we bought was nice red bedding plus some black and red pillows. It looked better but still not perfect:
but it wasn’t enough. Soon after that small change I decided to take off this ugly map and I suddenly I understood why it was hanging there. The wall was devastated. Someone used really hard glue to hang the poster which left stains, besides it was uneven and full of some weird spots after probably past posters. Ehhh I had to figure it out somehow. Soon I did!
I bought Paris posters in Ikea. I actually become a bit sentymental looking at the photos and remembering how we were wondering exactly in those places.
Anyway it didn’t cover everything, so I took a chance and went to one of those shops where you can find everything and I found! It was a big nice New York poster. It fitted perfectly. The same day I found an old music book cover in one of the antiquarian shops so my wall was ready. Juuupi now it’s perfect look:
Then it was about time to change our bedroom. Fortunately it already looked nice, so we simply bought cork table and nice blanked for bed. The living room however needed some touch. The wall above couch was simply white with no paintings or posters also there was quite nasty painting in the corner. I figured first step would be to buy some French posters and something to make paspartu for them. We went to Raima, this is a shop with decoration stuff and bought some nice paper. Next we visited small market close to Columb monumental and I found nice original French posters.
Next we bought some plants and hidden awful painting. In it’s place we hung gold thingie. I will put our photos there. Then we hung posters added some our stuff and now it looks nice too, look:
We have landed, took map of Barcelona from the airport information and stopped for a tea. Within 1h we were already at the hostel. I have checked my emails and listed all confirmed meetings for apartment viewing. Everything was set already. After Paris I knew that you have to start arranging everything way before coming to new city. I used Loquo since it’s the best service for renting apartment or buying used stuff. Since everything was set up we could relax, so we decided to go and see the sea. We took a map to see the direction and went there by metro. Unfortunately it was already quite dark, so we couldn’t see much :/ On the way to feel sand and sea breeze we stopped in Spar for something to drink and eat. The plan was: we’ll seat on the sand drink and eat watching waves coming to the shore. After shopping we were only few steps from beach and then a guy came. At first he looked drunk but after he came closer I heard: ‘Crack, hashish? Very good Ma’am very good’. I said no and saw him going to the beach. Ehhhh dark beach and some drug dealer made me feel not to go and we simply got back to the hostel. The evening finished by treating ourselves with beer and chips during nice movie.
Next day we started by visiting first from 4 apartments that we were interested in renting. I was really surprised because I loved it from the first sight. It was big, had great location (10min walk to Sagrada Familia) and the landlady was really nice. I said to her that we’ll give her an answer within next 2 days and we went to see next places. Each time when I was entering a new flat I was hunted by the feeling that that one is the one. By the end of the day we were sure my 6th sense was right it was the best one! I couldn’t believe it we found our place on the first day!
I sent an email to the landlady and we arranged a meeting to sign the agreement. Within next few days we moved in.
The first semester has come to an end, so I was about to start another journey - through Barcelona. The next 1.5 year (till the end of my studies) I will spend at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, which means a lot of sun, beach, mountains and I hope amazing people. I was suppose to start on January 19th.
Before that time I had nice Christmas and New Years Eve. During Christmas as always grandma said I look too skinny and too pale I don’t remember her saying the contrary. Heheh I guess it’s just what grandmas do. I lost some weight and I was very happy about it, but still my silhouette was far away from skinny I wouldn’t be able to give up sweets or beer, which I enjoy from time to time. Anyway the family meetings went quite well. The presents were pretty easy, since I got funds for what I would want. Ehhh this is a disadvantage of emigration, people don’t know what to buy you and you either get something that you will never use or just money to cover your needs. Luckily I was in the second case. We ate a lot sang some carols and talk during these relaxing days. Next I went snowboarding to Polish mountains. I was really looking forward to this trip since my good friends were going and I was longing for snowboarding for such a long time. Full of hopes I boarded a train, then a bus and within few hours I was ready to start my winter madness. I didn’t remember how should I snowboard so small mountain next to our accommodation was perfect for the start. But you can’t stop your ambition and soon I was going with guys to bigger mountains with steeper slopes . Everything was like I dreamed of it, so relaxing and peaceful. Guys had karaoke, so I was hurting everyone’s ears with my great voice hehehhe The funniest part was that I was actually winning quite a few competitions. Imagine our musical skills!! This great contest pushed us to drink some alcohol, which made everything bearable and in some cases gave courage to sing. Like always nice times end soon and I didn’t realize that it was almost the end. We came back home and started to pack for my Barcelona.
As usual I had problem with choosing what to take and what to leave. I always want to take everything. But we managed to get into the plane and pack quite a lot of our clothes. This time we didn’t take cosmetic stuff from Poland, since strengthen of Polish currency caused raise of prices and it wasn’t profitable any more.
The plane was nice and small (Embraer), we had a meal on board, but all of it came with quite a big price. The disadvantage of Barcelona is that there is no cheap connection to it from Poland and we had to spent 300€ on our tickets. But still I heard so many good things about this city that I couldn’t stop the excitement. Our next adventure was about to begin.....
In the middle of December we were going back to Poland so the Christmas time was our last in Paris. I finished exams on Thursday and we had 3 days before our flight back home. On Friday of course I was sleeping huge amount of hours since it happened that I was studying during previous nights Then we decided to see Eiffel Tower and Arc the triumph. There are two Arcs of the triumph. First is the old one at the end of Champs de Elysees and the other is the modern one in a district called la Defense. The one at the end of Champs de Elysees we saw in a first days, but we still didn’t visit the la Defense. Thus we took a metro and went to this modern part of Paris. I must say that I was even more happy that we lived in Montmartre, because la Defense was horrible. Only huge buildings, a lot of company skyscrapers and completely different from the Paris everyone loves. The weather wasn’t good either but we managed to take some photos.
The next day fortunately there was a better weather so we went to see the old flea market. I was full of hopes to buy very original things, like dresses or purses. However when we got there I couldn’t be more disappointed. Most of those things were old second-hand in horrible condition and sports wear in the same price as in the shops. The only thing worth seeing were original photos of Paris from years back and old vinyl records. We didn’t spend much time in there and get back home. After all we still had some packing to do.
It’s a special time in this city. Everyone seems to be in a better mood, besides the decorations on the streets makes you feel cosy even when it’s so cold outside. Just from curiosity we went to see other streets then the main ones and we were amazed because each small square was decorated. You could buy sweet treats and warm wine almost everywhere. All those things created a great atmosphere in the evening, since you were walking through the streets with many small lights, smelling hot wine combined with nice food. During the day you couldn’t see the lights so the atmosphere was a bit worse but still nice. For example on the Champs de Elysees they have put fake snowman and some other winter decorations. Of course there was a huge market too, where you could buy everything starting from gloves finishing on hot dog. You can see some photos of it here .
During the day when we were taking those photos it was a beautiful weather. We didn’t have such luck while going to see the Versailles. It was so horribly cold that we had to stop in McDonalds for a cup of tee on our way back. The horrible cold also convinced us not to go through the gardens. However we managed to see the insides . You can see huge things looking like balloons. That was an exhibition that created quite an argument in Paris, because someone with king’s family roots claimed it was inappropriate to have an exhibition in such place as Versailles. I don’t really know how the argument ended, but even Polish newspapers were writing about it.
Montmartre is the artists district in which we live. I really love it, despite homeless people drinking and hanging around almost every street corner. We have our bakery with delicious bread and baguettes, fromangery and lots of ateliers and boutiques. They have really nice stuff there. When I am mad because of constantly wet pavement or stinky guys in the underground I go to see nice places around. There is a cemetery where i.e. Slowacki is berried or Zola. It is interesting because if you walk through the avenues of this cemetery you can see really original graves. There is a grave with football in it or graves with really nice sculptures. Of course Montmartre is all about the fun and rarely people manage to get to the cemetery You have nice restaurants everywhere, not every restaurant is horribly expensive Also There is a secession church and the oldest underground station in Paris called Abesses. Near the station you can always hear someone playing guitar or singing or watch group of students playing lively music. Of course each performance is happily better than the one you can experience in the underground. Seriously I feel like someone would punish me for getting into the same compartment of a train as the so called artist. I am using tube to go to Uni every day and by now I can list you great artists of the underground: there are two ladies who think they can sing, one is singing in Italian the other in French both suck so horribly that you have to volume up your ipod, which not always helps if they choose to sing opera. There are also about 3 guys playing accordion, who are no better than the great lady singers. I thought I will never be more irritated by so called artists than by the guy playing bagpipes in Oxford, where I use to live, but this guys are irritating on more less the same level. So again underground is the worst course of this city. You pay horrible amount of money for your ticket, you are stuck in tiny train and have 90% chances to hear performance that gives you the cribs. Brrr
Coming back to nice places, the most beautiful one is Sacre coeur. It’s the cathedral on a hill. The cathedral itself is marvellous and since it’s on a hill you can see whole Paris. Actually now I think this is the place where most French people hang out. Under Eiffel tower you can meet only tourists and here there is always someone playing music, crowd singing, someone celebrating b-day and few tourists in between. If you get the chance to see Paris then you have to pop in here. If not then you can pretend that you’ve been there and see the photos.
It’s a lovely city. Everywhere you go you will find something nice, but you have to be in a good mood, because when you’re grumpy you’ll spot everything which is completely backwards in here. For example the city centre is gorgeous, museums have great exhibitions, but try to go further and you will see that every time Parisians wash their floor in a shop, they pour the dirty water on the street after they finish. Several times in the early morning, when I was still half asleep going to University I almost fell down slipping on the wet pavement. After such trap you usually get to the underground. The technological achievement which helps us to move faster. Well with this faster I could discuss, since quite often it simply breaks down and you are trapped in a dark tunnel waiting for the train to move on. 2 weeks ago I spent 15minutes waiting for the train to be magically fixed in the middle of it’s route. The problem is that if you even change the line the time you waste to go back and take the proper line would be greater than simply waiting. Also the underground smells so horribly. Seriously they should do something about that because it’s barely bearable. Thus after a while I started to fell more like cartoon Mario who is constantly committing bad places on his way. However like Mario I also get to get my bonus, which are the nice places here. For example in Louvre you can see Mona Lisa of course and wonderful sculptures. Louvre is so big that I wasn’t able to see everything at once, so I am planning to get back there . Till now I managed to do such photos: louvre. Close to louvre is worth seeing petit and grand palace. I haven’t been in grand palace yet but I have managed to visit petit palace twice. The building itself is lovely, with the garden inside, small cafeteria and quite a few worldwide famous paintings. Lately aside from paintings of Monet, Cezanne or Renoir you could also see the fashion photos exhibition. I really loved it, so I took a lot of photos take a look here.
We thought that our bad luck has finished and now everything will start to be easy and enjoyable. We couldn’t be more mistaken. We unpacked our suitcases ate nice meal on our balcony and start sorting things out. First we find out there is no internet that we could use within the flat. How could Mark work as computer scientist without internet? It’s impossible! It took us almost a month to sort this thing out.
Second Mark was still without a job and we both knew that if he won’t find something as soon as possible we will start having financial problems.
Third, people at my course are like small rats running in a race. They pretend to be cool and go out from time to time, but they spend unbelievable hours in library. It’s like complete opposite to what I had on my undergraduate studies. I remember when we were sitting together and learning together just to speed things up and have more time for enjoyable things. Here it’s impossible! They will answer your question if you ask them but there is no way that someone who is good in particular subject will simply teach group of others. Thanks God they have sense of humour otherwise this cultural experience would be unbearable.
So once again when everything looked nice it turns out it’s only the first impression.
Fortunately good days started week after. Mark got a job! It’s IT and design so thing he always liked to do, the salary is good, so we were so happy. I also managed to settled on the university, so it was about time to see Paris.
After 3 apartments fail we had only 2 options left. Check one advert which seemed very good or pay the agency. By that time I have already started my classes at university and hotel check out day was really close. There seemed to be no other choice than the agency. Hence we found the cheapest one, which had nice studio apartment on its website and started arranging viewing and all formalities.
Agency representative gave us the phone to the owner and we were going to see the place next day. We were pretty sure it will be the one, since online photos were great and the area was also perfect, so that evening we relaxed with some wine cheese and nice movie. I was so happy that this nightmare is about to end and then Mark received an email from agency saying that they are very sorry but this apartment is already rented. I suspect that the landlady has rented it without telling the agency, because the day before they said it was available. Nevertheless such news were killing us because we almost didn’t have anything else!
Happily few hours later the same agent called offering us another apartment. We saw it the same day and decided to take it. We didn’t have much choice because the next day we had to check out from the hotel on which we had spend a lot of money and we didn’t want to spend any more euros for another night. Besides, I had to study and it’s horribly hard in a hotel room. Anyway, the place was really nice, with balcony, close to Sacre-Coeur and surrounded with banks and various shops. We moved in the next morning relieved that our apartment troubles are finally over.
The lack of music was totally misleading and because of that we missed it completely.
and on the wall was hanging huge map of the earth. euuhhhh I couldn’t stand it so the first thing we bought was nice red bedding plus some black and red pillows. It looked better but still not perfect:
