A Trip in Warsaw Is Always Good For The Heart

Dear friends,

What can I say? Having a trip to Warsaw is always good fun, either if you are there on business or on pleasure. The last Friday of May I had to run to Warsaw for a day - Thursday and Friday I had my 2 last days off from my previous workplace and I knew that for a while I would not be able to have a break so I made the most of it. My passport needed to be renewed with the new name + I was still searching for wedding shoes => a trip to Warsaw was due :)

This time my awesome husband did not have time to go with me so I went with my faithful guardians: The Ladybug & The Friendly Moose :) and for the first time I went with Polish trains, and it was not that bad, I must admit!

The Screen Showing The Time - Date

Reading and hydrating is always very important!

Getting from Krakow to Warsaw took around 4 hours but time passed by fast as I was very much engaged in the 2nd book of The Inheritance Cycle by the amazing Christopher Paolini - to be more precise, I am speaking of Eldest :) SPOILER ALERT: Saphira learns that she is not the only one dragon alive - fun times to come!

Here you can see a few pictures from the Rainbow monument in Warsaw. It was previously burned down as the anti-gay community was outraged. Right now it has been redone and it is fire proof + extra cameras are installed around it.

And I also bumped into these weird colorful manequins that were showing off some of really creative handmade goodies - they were not here last time I passed by ;) so this is evidence to how much Warsaw is changing and how colorful this place can be.

Guess what else I bumped into while I was roaming around the Romanian Embassy Area? An Italian Expo with sale ;) Just check that huge salami, bigger than me! Quite a challenge to do that, I bet! Below you will see a few pictures from the fair and read some lovely quotes related to Italian food - which is always very yummy ;) + you will also see the LadyBug & The Moose dropping by the wine stand to check the vintage ;)

Who likes some dry tomatoes?

If your mother cooks Italian food, why should you go to a restaurant? - Martin Scorsese

The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later youre hungry again. - George Miller

I am not one to turn down macaroni and cheese, even late at night. I love Italian food. I love pasta... A refrigerator full of water and Gatorade? Honey, thats just not gonna happen. - Queen Latifah

Chi va a letto senza cena tutta la notte si dimena. - Italian proverb
Translation: He who goes to bed without eating, will regret it throughout the night.

Mangiare per vivere e non vivere per mangiare - Italian proverb
Translation: Eat to live and not live to eat.

A tavola non si invecchia. - Italian proverb.
Translation: At the table with good friends and family you do not become old.

La cucina piccola fal la casa grande. -Italian proverb
Translation: A small kitchen makes the house big.

Non si vive di solo pane. - Italian proverb.
Translation: One does not live by bread alone.

"Everything you see I owe to pasta." - Sophia Loren

A Small Piece of StreetArt in the City Center

A Colorful Spot :)

A Light Cheesecake with fruits & Maracuja Milkshake for the LadyBug

After a long day, waiting for the train back to Krakow we met our lovely friend working in Warsaw. We even managed - during her lunch break! - to get one pait of shoes for the wedding :) They are all white, ballerina shoes made out of leather inside-out. And they are so comfortable! Soon you will see pictures, I promise!

I had the newest milkshake from Coffee Heaven - yes, if you feel the name is familiar for you, you are right ;) as it is one of my (and my dear friends) favourite places. The milkshake is with Maracuja and it is very smooth and soothing, perfect to relax and sweet enough to give you the kick ;)  I topped it with some cheesecake with fruits, and everything was just magical :)

The last picture = magical sweets I brought from the Italian Expo. They look like figs but they truly are indeed sweets shaped as figs, sweets made from marzipan... green marzipan inside out and even the beginning and the end and the shape makes you think of figs... makes me think of Greece :) I also bought some pistacchio cream and I am waiting for the proper ocassion to try it out or else I would just eat it like Nutella, by the spoon :))  Any good receipe with pistacchio cream? :) I would love to hear from you, and if you ever visited Warsaw what magical things did you see?

Yours truly,

The Warsaw Fan LadyBug

Paris Is A Womans Town With Flowers In Her Hair

Dear friends,

Paris is a city you fall in love with immediately! And unconditionally! Well at least that is how it was for me... I was in love with Ireland and France ever since I can remember - I blame it all on Alexandre Dumas father and son and + my mum who was listening to Joe Dassin + all the movies with Louis de Funès that I saw when I was a wee lass... I always knew that sooner or later I will want to see Paris and so I did. I had to wait many years - until my second year of Masters degree - until I went there with Clara :) Claire Bear is a sweet friend of mine andI have told you about here, on my blog. We went for a longer weekend to Paris and it was beautiful! So I wanted to share with you some thoughts - and some quotes - on Paris and maybe even make you think of jumping in a plane and having a weekend there for yourself ;)

My Fav Picture From Paris - Taken With My Nokia E51

“Oh, London is a mans town, theres power in the air;
And Paris is a womans town, with flowers in her hair;
And its sweet to dream in Venice, and its great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living, there is no place like home.”
Henry van Dyke

“Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets--as vast and indestructible as nature itself. All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower. Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her--and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.”
Anne Rice, Interview With The Vampire 

“The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American. Military, naval, legal, corporate, criminal, jazz, rap and ghetto discourses are mingled at every turn. The French language, like Paris, has attempted, through its Academy, to retain its purity, to fight the advancing tides of Franglais and international prefabrication. English, by comparison, is a shameless whore.”
Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast  

I must admit I wanted to do this post for a very long while but I did not have the time to sort through all the pictures from the Paris trip with Claire so I had to make do with the pictures I already had on Facebook - but you will forgive me for that ;) It would be madness to try and explain Paris or what it means to me but I can tell you some things that were on my to do list and some extra things we managed to do.

• Stay in a small hostel, just in the back of the well known Moulin Rouge. Dont be afraid of the small elevators and always eat breakfast at the hostel, the croissants are tasty and hot and the coffee is very good ;)
• Talk to people around you and especially to the people at the hostel and in the room you are staying. We stayed in a 4 bed room with inside bath and it was really cozy and quiet. We made friends and we even went together to a walk in the evening at the Tour Eiffel.
• Try to get off the beaten path of the tourists and get yourself lost. We got lost in Montmartre and we bumped into wonderful street artists. There is the first place I have ever heard of / heard / seen a hang instrument. 

  

  The Hang Drum :)

• Visit the Versailles and leave leave yourself at least a day for that. An entire day to wonder in the beautiful palace and make sure to wonder around in the gardens and even have a picnic on the grass there - nevermind the rain, even if it catches you... Make sure you will not miss the Petit Trianon. Although Madame de Pompadour, who wished to “relieve the king’s boredom”, was the instigator of this small palace that Gabriel built in the 1760s, it is the memory of Marie-Antoinette that hangs over the building. In 1774, Louis XVI offered the Trianon estate to the Queen who was able to live away – too far away for some – from the Court.
  
   Inside-out Versailles is a dream... (above 2 pictures were taken with Nokia E51)

  

  Inside Marie Antoinettes Rose Cottage & Garden

• Save another day for 2 of the best museums in town: The Louvre & The Orsay. We choose to stay at Louvre just for the paintings and the sculptures and we went off the premises after 4 hours! Orsay is much more easier to handle and it is very intimate and very special for me as it holds numerous Rodin pieces I love :) 
• Have a very relaxing day at the Montmartre and see Sacre Coeur and visit the cemetery where you can find Emile Zola, Hector Berlioz and my all time fav author Alexandre Dumas. You can take your time and pay your respects for the love they put into you for a country far away.

  

  Alexandre Dumas Grave

• At least walk by the Paris Opera house and think of the story of The Phantom Of The Opera. Unfortunately one of the things I always wanted to do was go inside The Opera and see it in its full glory. Maybe that means that one day I will be back :)
• Conquer the Tour Eiffel - tell you the truth I have not managed that. First time we tried to go up but the queues were so huge we said we would just walk up the stairs... We did not figure out that it would be so chilly and windy. We ended up 2/3 of the way and stopped there as all elevators had huge queues and we were to cold to go further on foot. We said we would try again the next day - which we did but unfortunately the upper part was closed the next days due to strong wind... Another sing I must come back ;)  
• Check the Notre Dame for The Hunchback ;) or at least have a look at the gargoyles and feast your eyes upon the best view over Paris :)

  

  Yep! We made it! :)

  

  But we did not find the Hunchback... (taken with Nokia E51)

• Walk! and ocasionally be wild and take the Metro :) each stop has these wonderful metro signs very antique and twirly and artsy. There are so many things that you just pass by... just open your eyes to the beauties that Paris has to offer you and dont go all automatic pilot into it ;)

  

  Paris Metro - On My Way To Versailles

• Go into a ordinary local small shop and buy cheese, to another one and buy some grapes, buy a baguette and get going with your friends to catch a good place to sit down under The Tour Eiffel and watch it light at night. Watch it light and sparkle and pop a bottle of wine and have a picnic. Have a picnic, I did that ;)
• Have yourself an early morning or late afternoon walk along the Seine and take in the sights and the people... the local artists selling antiques - books and prints and whatever you think of :) Grab a sandwich and eat it as you take a look in their merchandise but be careful not to stain anything ;) 
  
  Watch as Notre Dame de Paris appears at a distance and make your way through to feed the pidgeons in front of it and maybe sit down and sketch the facade...
• Walk in the night - be not afraid, it is calm and quiet and you get to see the wonderful old buildings come to life. You will see The Louvre all light up and you will watch the Tour Eiffel sparkle in the distance and you will go back to your motel with a full heart, passing by people drinking wine in the street and dancing without any care...
• Go visit Napoleon Bonaparte and see how cold and monumental a grave can get... How weird is it to have thousands upon thousands visiting you and you being locked up, unable to say that maybe you would like the kind of privacy that maybe Alexandre Dumas or Emile Zola has... that even though there are so many people around you, you still feel cold and alone...
• And last, but NEVER least, go inside a bookstore and get yourself lost there... I got lost into finding the book I love, one of the books of my childhood, a book for children and for grown up alike, a book about true love and about friendship: Le Petit Prince.

** I did this post for the Traveling Tuesday but most of all I did this post with all my heart. I hope that one day you will manage to go to Paris and you will let me know of your own checklist. I hope and pray that one day I will come back and I will manage to go inside The Opera and I will manage to go until the end of Eiffel... One day! :) All in due time ;) **

Yours truly,
A LadyBug In Love With Paris

How To Do A Pre Proposal

Dear friends,

I shall share with you a story today also in the VGA version :) Due to the fact that I was cleaning up my phone card I bumped into some very old pictures that brought back very nice memories that I wish to share with you. On the 29th of April 2012 these pictures were taken inside 2 airports: the Henri Coandă International Airport in Bucharest and the Chopin International Airport in Warsaw.

I believe - if my memory serves me right - that it was my fiancees first trip to Romania :) I came for 2 weeks and he came for one (my last week) so we could leave for Krakow in the same day. Unfortunately, as we took the plane tickets in different days we did not get the same plane back. He was the first one to leave and I had to wait in the airport for about 4 hours. But actually I do not mind that! I love airports! And if I could get stuck somewhere it would not be a bus or a train station but an International Airport, please :)

The trip to Romania was awesome for my fiancee and he admits he loves Iasi (and I DID NOT! force him to say that and he said it from the bottom of his heart, more than once! What can I say?! I have an adorable family and cute town ;) ha!). He fell in love with me even more and with my family around :) When we came to the airport (very early in the morning, around 5 am...) we had to wait for the flight he had and because we were both hungry after the hours by train... (yes... the train from Iasi to Bucharest takes a while...) we went to the Restaurant that opened around 7 and ordered a typical American breakfast: Eggs Benedict :) Either they were just purely awesome or we were really starving :p But while we were there... He asked me what I would say if He would ask for my hand... what would I say if He asked me to marry him? Sincerely I knew this was coming, as we were talking about marriage and engagement for a long while... He was just so cute! He said he was so in love that he would have to propose to me then :)

We used to play around with this idea, and during the week he was there, while we were out, he even proposed to me with a ring made out of a drinking straw ;))) But he was so serious in the airport :) I said that I would, I would marry him, but in order to make sure of that he would need to ask me again when he will have the ring fit for asking... Now that I think of it, this sounded so very materialistic of me! And I am not a bit like that! :) I was just teasing him and doing this all in good fun. And of course he knew that ;)

After the pre-proposal (as I called it) we continued talking on about the engagement and the wedding and making plans. And I must admit he is awesome at that! Nothing fails him :) After a while it was time to go and the 2 pictures above are with his plane... I waved him goodbye, the plane took off, and there I was, alone in the airport with around 4 hours to go until my boarding time...

So I started wondering around the airport to see the latest changes (and I must admit they were quite a few and the airport changed in time since the first time I was there, somewhere in 2007, when I was coming back from USA). I was in a mood for sweets so... You can find Brioche Doree at Facebook or on their site, right HERE :) I found it at the airport, by mistake/chance and I am thinking of those sweets until today :) I had the Lemon Tart with make me mouth-water even now, when I remind myself of it :)

To spent time right I also bought a Marie Claire (my fav magazine in the World!) along with the Wall Street Journal I found on the bench ;))) and I started reading and enjoying my awesome lemon tart that I wished it would last forever and a day! It was all rainbows and unicorns! Like a tart should be :)

Also, the first plane was not the end of the trip. The Flight was Bucharest - Warsaw - Krakow. So after the international flight I also had to wait about 2 hours in Warsaw Airport for the domestic flight until Krakow :))) A whole lot of fun, Im telling you, to get from Krakow to Iasi... It never gets below half a day! ;)

So by the time you reach Warsaw you can get hungry - hence some Chinese food is in order ;) 

Yours truly,

the Pre-Proposed-In-An-Airport LadyBug :)