Monday, June 29, 2009

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

Saturday, June 27, 2009

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 tastes good, but since I'm cutting alcohol of my life, I found it a bit strong. When the ice melts, the drink diluted and 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. I hate 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 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 not in 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 from 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).

Thursday, June 25, 2009

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

Thursday, June 11, 2009

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. :)