I ate too much...

... and now my stomach is burning!! Geez, its been ages since I last had this pain. Not good.
It's the bear-mode: eating during Autumn to have enough fat to hibernate in winter. Problem is I'm not used to eating so much (fatty) food.

But between you and me, the food was good, really good. Worth every extra pound I put on.

Starting the countdown

Two weeks for our trip to Málaga in Spain... It's going to be short (1 week) but hopefully we will catch good weather and rest a bit.

Long weekend

Today is (was, the day is gone) Bank Holiday in the UK. The last one of the year. It was a very lazy long weekend - we didn't do much. We saw a house (nice, but still small), we went to the park for a walk and to catch some sun, we had Roberto visiting and cooking delicious food for us, we saw a couple of football matches for the Italian championship (with all teams having betwenn 30-50% Brazilian players).

And the two chosen ones are...

... ice skating and absolute beginners singing classes!

Don't really need to do these things, but they are fun and will keep me away from boredom for a while.

For after the holidays...

I'm checking a couple of courses that I always wanted to attend and I think I will be able to attend one or two from December onwards.
Very exciting!

On the train home after a busy day at work...

Left work at 9pm today, missed a train and have to wait another 20 min
for the next one. Nothing unusual, but I'm quite tired and there's a
very noisy and annoying woman next to me - I wish I could turn her
off.

Yes, yes, we are going to Brazil. I have panic attacks with the idea
sometimes. I had a dream that I was praying before boarding the plane
because I was scared of a plane crash. I also get stressed with the
idea that Cipri won't like Rio. I mean, it's my favourite place in the
world, despite all problems, and I have many happy memories that in my
mind it is not possible not to like the place. But believe me, I met
people that didn't like it.

It's not like I want to move back for good, but now that I'm away, I
feel like going back to do all the things I postponed because 'I was
living there and could do some other time'.

It's been three years. I hope I won't be disappointed.

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Wednesday

Such a bad day, neither beginning nor end of the week. Typical half
empty, half full situation.

Didn't sleep well at all, had weird dreams, bed was too warm/too cold.
So I'm tired and wishing it was Friday.

It's also cold this morning. Colder than I expected.

All I can do now is look forward my holidays. We are going to Malaga
for a week in September. The idea is to rent a car and drive through
the coast. I heard that the weather will be nice so fingers crossed.

Then we are going for two weeks to Brazil. It's not really going to be
proper holidays as I haven't been to Brazil for 3 years now and it
will be all abou family and introducing Cipri to the folks. He will
then decide if he still want to stay with me (haha). We are hoping to
have some few days to travel around but two weeks is not much really.

And that will be it. I'll have another 3 days for the rest of the
year, that I might just use between Xmas and NY, but we will just stay
in London.

Ok, got to London Bridge now. Gotta go.

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Holidays

YEY, booked another holidays. Geez, I am soooooooo happy! :-D

2009 is not too bad after all.

Using the spare time

I spend about an hour on trains/tube going to and coming back from
work. Actually, it can be twice the time, if you consider the waiting
time, changing trains/tube and walking parts. Two hours a day is quite
a lot to be wasted. In the beginning I used to sleep on my way to work
as I'm not a morning person. Then I tried to read but I feel sick.
Sometimes I just stare. I do a lot of staring - I just look at people,
or to the horizon, and think about 1) nothing, 2) work, 3) things that
I should have done but haven't or that need to be done and will be, 4)
holidays, 5) how I wanted my life to be, 6) random stuff (such as how
London would be if we had a nice beach here?). Now I update the blog
or play sudoku. I could work, but I wouldn't get anything out of it
apart from less hours of me-time.

I need to find something else to do in my spare commuting time. Suggestions?

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So, I got this email...

... About the importance of having time. Or making time. Basically
this lady (a Brazilian journalist, not that you care) says that
nothing really matters if you don't have to be happy. In a nutshell.

Nothing new, I must admit, but something that we should always remind
ourselves of otherwise we go bonkers.

So, I decided to find time for things I want to do. I'm slowly getting
there by moving one of my gym days to Saturdays. It might seem a waste
of good weekend for some, but it turned out that my Saturdays are much
more productive. We go out for lunch, we go to the cinema, we can even
go shopping!

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And more than half year is gone...

This is really scary.

... it seems like yesterday that we had a snow storm in London. But it was beginning of February.

... summer will be gone is less than a month.

... with it will algo go away our Summer Fridays.

... I can't remember all my New Year's resolution, but I think so far I only accomplished a couple. Still about 3-4 to go.

... I don't think I'm going to Brazil this year, which is very sad.

I need a diary

I've been trying to find out some stuff that happened earlier in the year but it is impossible! Damn! I need to have a diary and write absolutely everything that happens in my life. I would have thought that the blog would be enough, but I guess I can't write EVERYTHING on here.

Anyways, at least it's not that important.

Great Saturday! Not so sure about Sunday...

On Friday, the weekend looked like it was going to be a complete waste. No plans, everything was "maybe", "let's see how it goes", etc. But we managed to see one house (nice, but not great and too expensive for what it is), go to the gym, have a nice lunch, watch a film, go shopping, and have a little wander until we had enough of tourists.

We had Loads of plans for Sunday: going to the supermarket and go for a run were two. I wanted to go to the gym too and the sun was so nice that I even thought about sunbathing in the park. We barely left the house. We did the shopping in less than 30 minutes and that was all.

And we complain when the weather is shit.

Talking about nice things

I got an extra day off because I worked on a Sunday. Yey!
Gonna work from home the Friday before Bank Holiday because we are
moving to the other side of the floor! Yey!
I'll book a week holiday for September! Yey!
Monday is almost over! Yey!

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Sorry...

I'm in a bad mood and hungry. Just ate 6 pieces of sushi and my
stomach is complaining even more. Got to the bear mode: eating as much
as I can to stock up for winter.

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Bankers rhyme with Wank...

Today I took a detour from my usual itinerary and ended up in Canary
Wharf, the area where most of the Bankers - posh people that earn lots
of money in bonuses - work.

On my way back, about 5 HSBC employees were discussing their bonuses.
I think they were leaving work at that time. Honestly, I don't think
you should talk about your bonuses on the tube, as it is a public
territory full of normal people struggling to save money to buy their
first home - and might not even succeed.

And what's worse: they might wear nice suits and expensive shoes, but
you can remove tackiness of a human being born tacky. Geez, men
wearing huge golden rings and necklaces is so over. These are for
rappers and drug dealers, not bankers. Wankers.

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My first football match ever

Live, I mean.

If I have to rate the experience between 1 and 10, it would easily get a 9. Despite transportation problems (every weekend there are line closures, trains being cancelled, etc. You learn to live with that), we got to Wembley Stadium quickly and with no major problems.

One thing that wasn't part of the show, but it will be added to the whole experience: a bus was in fire at the parking lot. By the time the fire brigade got there, half of it was burned - but it didn't explode!! I think nobody got hurt.

Back to the game. The stadium was packed: almost 86,000 people in there; half blue (Chelsea supporters), half red (ManU supporters). I don't have a team in the UK, but I was supporting Chelsea because 1) we were in the blue are, 2) Mr. C is a Chelsea supporter, 3) does it matter?
I rally get into a game whenever I decide to watch it, no matter what sport, and live is even worse. I do get very stressed, very anxious, very... fan. As a result, my nails are all bitten, I have sore throat from screaming, and I'm a bit in pain from the stress.

In my humble opinion, I think ManU played better, but what can you do? Football is always a surprise - not always the best team wins and this time I can't complain. It feels good to be in the winning side.

One thing I really liked about the match is that people are really well-behaved. I'm pretty sure it would have ended in a fight if this was a match in Brazil.

I also really like the acoustic of the place: you can feel the singing in you, the claps and feet stepping on the floor seem like a thunder storm. I loved it!

And Wembley Stadium is just so beautiful. It's a brand new stadium, so everything still looks shiny and new. Very comfy chairs, perfect green grass, very nice quality screens.

The way back wasn't as nice as the way there, but still wasn't too bad. Almost half of the people left earlier but we still had to fight our way to the tube station and we got two packed trains home. Our final train had air con, which was great!

All in all, fantastic experience. I'm not a football fan, even less of English football, but I think everybody should try it at least once.

At Wembley Stadium

It's a bit frustrating how limited it is to send messages, upload blog and twitter via mobile is, especially when you want to upload photos.

Anyway, we are at Wembley Stadium at the moment (our 1st time - we've been to the Arena several times) and it would be better to show it in images instead of words.

Oh well, when we get back home.

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What DIDN'T happen today?

* I didn't go to the gym. I'm going tomorrow afternoon - yes, Saturday - and hopefully we will go to the cinema afterwards.
* I also didn't leave the office early. Summer Fridays I leave at 1pm - left almost 4pm. Not fun, especially when you got at work every day at 8.30am and left almost every day after 7pm (yesterday at 8.30pm). You get used very quickly to having a life here, so when these things happens can be very irritating. My 'official' working hours are either from 9am to 5pm or 10am to 6pm with 1h lunch break. :-) Unofficially I work from 9am to 6pm every day except Fridays, from 9am to 4pm (Summer Fridays as per above). But in real life I never take lunch breaks, get to the office 30min earlier and leave 30 min later. Sweet.
* I also didn't follow my diet. Had a Burger King meal. So so so stressed out that I needed it. :-) Probably the second of the year.

From Mr. C's computer...

The keyboard sucks. Well, maybe it's just me not used to it and pressing the wrong buttons.
He is going to be late today because he is meeting a Romanian friend who is visiting London. I wasn't invited, so came straight home. hehe He will be annoyed that I am writing this on the blog. :-P You didn't invite me!
That's ok - he knows I've been in a bad mood lately.

Tsk

Had the worse meal ever. Should have saved on the calories...

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In the name of love...

... I'm joining by beloved b-friend in a football match this Sunday:
Chelsea v ManU.

And we HAVE to support Chelsea (not a problem to Mr. C) as we are in their area.

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TGI almost Friday!

I'm leaving work now, after 13 hours of work non-stop. Didn't even
stop for lunch; I'm starving!

The weather is AWFUL, heavy rain, loads of puds, wet newspapers on the
ground. And still the streets are packed (of tourists with their
annoying umbrellas and drunks-soon-to-become works).

Speaking of which (drunks), tonight is the farewell drinks of three
people at work. I'm not joining them as you can see.

Not grumpy though.

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Still on Anti-Christ

I'm the type of person to can see the beauty in pain (to make it VERY clear: some pain), that sympathise with depression, and think that suffering can make you stronger (again SOME suffering). In theory, this film would be perfect for some one like me. But it's too graphic.

On the other hand, I'm also the type of person that gets very emotional to beautiful things/acts - like the Sugar Loaf in Rio, snow, or a child doing something cute.

So, no, I'm not sick.

Anti-Crist

We were supposed to go for Harry Potter, but ended watching the
Anti-Crist one (Lars von Trier). VERY disturbing. Gentle sensitive
souls should keep distance.

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:(

Found out that Mr. C might work during the next bank holiday. Not nice.

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Back to bad habits

Back to drinking LOTS of coffee. No wonder why my nights of sleep are worse.

Having said that, I slept ok this night, waking up from time to time
because of soared musles. Nothing major though.

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One of those days...

Where it is very cloudy outside and also very warm. It is impossible
not to sweat, which is a bit annoying when it's not even 8 in the
morning (considering that at 1pm it can get worse).

I'm still thinking if I'm going to the gym or not today. Yesterday I
trained at the boxe area and it was too warm and really smelling bad.
Adding extra torture to the workout.

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Swine Flu

We had 7 cases in my office. Yesterday asking one of the ladies how is
it, she said it's awful. You feel miserable, in a lot of pain,
extremely high fever, you cough blood, and the list goes.

Geez, and I heard that in winter everybody will have had it. :(

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Swine Flu

It seems that the flu is spreading fast. So far I've heard of 6 cases
at work. Not fun.

Let's wait and see how winter goes.

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Sleepy

I don't know what happens with me that I can't sleep well from Sunday
to Monday. And every Monday is the same thing: deadly sleepy and
grumpy.

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Weekend

I wish I had fun stories to tell about my weekend, but I don't. Had to
work, which isn't fun. Had to organise my big mess, which isn't fun
(but at least the house is ok).

Today is warm and sunny. Nice! :)

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