Stuck on the train...

* sign *
There was a problem earlier between Charing X and Waterloo East
stations and now we are stuck "in traffic". Not a good thing when you
are tired and starving. At least the train has air con.

Why tired if I just got back from holidays? Because going to the beach
is tiring! And it's quite hot in London! And I've just been to the gym
and the trainer tried to kill me!!!

Yes, you read correctly. It's very hot in London. I'm not complaining
(just wished we had beaches in London) at all. Times like this I just
wanted to have more summer dresses. English girls can just wear summer
dresses in winter, but I'm not an English girl. And I don't like
feeling too cold or too hot. Temperature as it is (between 25C in the
evening and 30 during the day) is just about right.

Train is moving sloooooooooowly. At least I don't need to pee. Yet.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Odd things that just happen

Second day in Sardinia I had this really weird allergy to I don't really know what. Sun lotion? Post sun lotion? Sun? Heat? Beach? Salt? Thing is my face was all covered in spots. ALL. Forehead, chicks, chin, nose. Bizarre. Scary. Almost gone now.

On birthday celebrations, couples, drinks, life...

My birthday was last Monday, June 22nd. We were in Sardinia, Cipri's bday present to me (oww sweet). We went out for what was supposed to be a romantic dinner. But, you know, when it comes to romance, the couple Lima-Miclaus is... how can I put it nicely?... clumsy.

We try, but it never ends up like what traditional romantic couples would call romantic. At least we always end up laughing a lot and you know what they say about laughter. It makes you younger.

So, there we went to search for a restaurant (we didn't have recommendations in that area, but I wanted to eat fish/shrimps). We found this 'nice' place called Snoopy with typical Sardo cuisine. Sardinia? Snoopy? Yeah, right. We stayed outside, where people smoked. Boo.

I was so focused on the main dish that I didn't understand what Cipri was ordering as starters. We were going to share a starter and each would choose the main dish. Fine by me. N.B.: I don't understand how Italians can be fit; they eat like crazy: starters, 1st dish (usually pasta), 2nd dish (usually meat or fish), 3rd dish (salad), desert, coffee, drinks...

So, I ordered my king prawns (I chose one, the waiter said "no, you want this one here", who am I to argue?), Cipri ordered the starters and his fish. We also decided to try Mirto, the local drink. Look how cute:

It's a champagne glass, half frozen, with the drink on top. We then understood why the waiter was laughing at us. This is an 'aperitif' drink, like Porto wine. You are supposed to drink it AFTER the meals, not before. Who cares? It takes good, but since I'm cutting alcohol from my life, I found it a bit strong. When the ice melts, the drink gets a bit softer, which I quite enjoyed.

To cut a long story short, when the starter arrived, I realised what Cipri ordered: a seafood platter. Thing is: I don't eat seafood. Apart from shrimps, I can't stand any seafood, not even lobster, crabs, etc. And who would have thought that after almost four years he wouldn't remember this 'little' detail? Bless him, he felt so bad. But we (I) had a good laugh afterwards. I still think it's funny and lucky him I'm not the annoying-romantic type and I thought it was funny and didn't get upset at all (it's the thought that counts, isn't it?).

The shrimps were good, by the way.

Sardinia in photos

It's out of order, but anyway. Also, I realised that our favourite beaches are not in my photo camera, but on my video camera! Do'h! I also need to download the photos of my mobile, but the cable is at work. So, enjoy some of the few photos.
These two first photos are from a tiny beach in La Madalena, a small island Northeast of Sardinia. Very confusing to drive there, we couldn't find any beaches after driving for hours and all we could find was tiny and packed. This one was nice (the photo doesn't show the colour of the sea as it is in real life), but VERY small. Up: view of the strip of sand that we stayed. Down: view of the sea from a parking lot.

Below: Cala Luna, where we stopped after 2-3 hours of kayaking. Nice place, not too crowded, only accessible by boat (or kayak). Full of caves and nice rocky walls. Nice but also a problem as it covers the sun in the afternoon.

Below: our kayaks. It is VERY tiring, but I quite liked the experience.
Below: more of Cala Luna. See the big rocky wall? People go rock climbing there. These are not our kayaks we had several fellow kayakers on that day.

Below: ok, this photo was taken on a totally different day from the Kayak day. We were walking to a tiny beach called Cala Fuili (or something like that), one Cala before Cala Luna, but that can be reached by a footpath. Cala Fuili is somewhere by the trees. Can you see all the coast by the mountains/hills? That's our kayak "track". Apparently it is 25km of coast, but we didn't go half way through as our arms, necks and backs were screaming in pain. It was a bit windy and with all the boats coming and going the sea was wavy as well, so it took us forever to go anywhere (from Cala Luna to the next beach was about 2 hours on the way there and 1h30 on the way back).Oh, below is a better view of Calla Fuili. Problem with this beach? It's not sandy, but pebbled beach. Dude, your feet hurt like hell walking on pebbles. I thought I was going to cry!

I have no idea what's the beach below. I think it was on our way to Calla Fuili. We decided not to stop there and follow the crowd to the other one. Again, the colour of the sea in real life is sooooo much nicer!

Below is a beach (Spiagge Cartoe?) not too far from where we were staying (Cala Gonone). We went there twice. Not our favourite, but as I said it was the closest, it was empty, it's sandy beach and it is huge! The little head is Cipri's. Check the two guys with water levels on their knees. haha Sardinian beaches are very kids-friendly. No waves, shallow waters, crystal clear, fresh (not warm, not freezing).

Sardinia

* Sardinia is lovely. Small island but big enough to keep you busy for years!

* You need to have a car or a boat to explore Sardinia properly. Car is cheaper. Boat is quicker. I prefer boat. We got a car.

* We had a car for the whole trip. Sometimes you can drive for 1 - 2 hours to get to a beach. And because you have the car you can easily decide not to stay because 1) it's too small, 2) it's too crowded, 3) it's a pebble beach, and move on to another beach.

* There's more to Sardinia than just nice beaches. Lovely mountains, rivers, waterfall. We mainly saw beaches.

* We went kayaking on Wednesday. From 9.30am to 5.30pm. Let me tell you: it's great. But it's tiring like hell. It's worth doing it, but on the way back you can't help asking yourself why the heck you did that!

* I want to learn Italian.

* Full of Italian tourists here.

* We need to come back at least 5 more times to see a bit of everything.

* Come prepared. Do a bit of research. Some places can be very difficult to drive around and you can end up frustrated driving in circles.

* We found a lot of locals that speak English. Not everybody tho. But Italian is such a beautiful language that it's worth learning some few sentences and trying to communicate.

* I tried to speak - a mix of portuguese-spanish-french-italian. We always got away with it.

Arriverdeci!

--
Sent from my mobile device

What a day, what a week, what a year!

I've been quiet, I know, but haven't really been in the mood to write. Lack of inspiration, nothing to talk about.

Let's see... Randomly, as usual:

* Cipri's mami, tati, sis and bro-in-law came and left. I think they liked the trip. Weather was nice, they managed to see a lot and most of all they spent some time and money at Primark (the cheapest store in the world because the mass production and cheap labour I would say). I think I might have some pics here, but Anca should have even more and will probably post them soon (no pressure).
I was surprised that they liked the supermarket food (ready made stuff that you just put in the oven and voila). They are used to healthy homemade food so I would think they would feel a bit sick. Having said that, Anca agreed with me about the food here being genetically modified, tasting weird and deforming your body. Not sure if she agrees with the last part, but well...
No, I still don't speak Romanian. :(

* holidays booked and paid for. Next Thursday, Sardinia here we go!

* busy busy freaking busy at work. Man, this year is the worth ever!

* and also very stressful. Credit crunch, crisis, redundancies. Nobody is immune to it! Sad day at work today. Life goes on though and we are all alive and healthy.

* tube strike in London. Although I don't need the tube at all to go to work, the city is a mess and trains are packed and delayed.

* been good and go to the gym 2x week. Aiming for 4 from when I'm back from hols. :)

Weekend!!

So, it's Bank Holiday next Monday. We are going to Southampton on Saturday, will go for a Green Day cover show in the evening, and then Sunday and Monday will be exploring days. There are loads of things to do around: New Forest, with wild horses, Bournemouth and it's sandy beaches, and Isle of Wight - just a ferryboat trip away.

And since the weather is supposed to be nice, I think we will have a fabulous time!

Not to mention that it is Lelei's BIG birthday celebration (the actual day is 28th May though).

Ok, so here is the map. Can you see London (South East?), to the south a bit west is Southampton, on the coast. And it's where we are going. YEY!

The joys of life

A long long (loooong) time ago I was talking to my former landlady about how London is safe compared to our hometowns (I'm from Rio, she's from somewhere in South Africa - I want to say Johannesburg, but it could be Capetown). I mean, if you think about the different people and different cultures that live together in this city, the least you could expect is that they would be fighting against each other every other day except Saturdays and Sundays, which are Holy days. New York is way more dangerous than London. It also helps that fire guns are illegal here.
Anyway, having said that, it doesn't mean that London is paradise on Earth and everything is peace and quiet.
Last night (1.45 am) we were awaken by a lady screaming. Really screaming! So, logical thing to do is go to the window to see what the heck was going on. To cut a long story short: occupants of two cars were fighting near a construction site, with member of each car trying to break the other car. The hysterical lady was throwing heavy stones on the other car, the guy of the other car was using whatever object available to break the lady's car windscreen and the so the story goes. You know what surprises me the most? It's not the fact that people are so angry because of whatever has happened, or that the lady wasn't scared of being beaten to death (I would be), or that the guy didn't slap the girl so she would shut up, or that people were just there looking as it was a reality show. What surprises me the most is that the cars' windows didn't break!!! And these guys really tried! I hope my little Micra is that strong too.

Well, I did call the police. I was afraid that it would become even worse and we would have dead bodies in the streets but most important of all: I needed to sleep as I have a meeting outside London early morning today. I hope these kids burn in hell for disturbing my sleep.

Sorry, I get really grumpy when I'm tired.

Planning holidays

I'm so tired (bored?) that all I can think of is where I'm going next. No, I also think a lot about Cipri winning the lottery and me being able to work as a hobby, and not out of necessity. Anyway, so, we have a week-ish in June. Have only 14 days left for the entire year. Sad. I need to go to Brazil at some stage, not sure when. I haven't been to Brazil since October 2006, which is quite a while, but I don't feel like spending 700 pounds on tickets to a place I've lived in for twenty-many years. But I need to go back soon, for the sake of my sanity. I also need to go to Australia. And to Mauritius. And to so many other far far away places. Will need more than only 23 working days per year.

Holidays booked

Well, at least the slot has been booked at work. We are still debating where to go. My vote goes to 1) Sardinia, 2) Greece, 3) the Italian coast, 4) Croatia. Not necessarily in this order, but necessarily to a VERY HOT place where I can get sunburned while reading in the beach, swimming, and eating a lot of ice cream.

Films

We haven't seen many films lately, but managed to catch Star Trekk and Wolverine and liked both. We also saw The Curious Case of Benjamim Button at home last weekend. Interesting, but too long - we had to watch it in two parts. And that was all.

Wardrobe malfunction

I had high hopes for the day, despite the rainy weekend. Dressed in my very summery skirt, sleeveless shirt and sandals and off I went to work. Luckly the office was annoyingly warm, so indoors it really feels like summer. Otherwise, it's just freezing outside.