Italian gestures- explained

These are really useful if you plan a trip to Italy!

Enjoy! )

And this video continues the ideea:

 

 

Milano

In Milano people know how to party, but forget their clothes in the process…

And they love all types of Chocolate- even Gay Odin )

And love to stare at women (imagine a bunch of horny italians, screaming “Ciao Bella!”, with a creepy smile on their faces )

London

The weather outside reminds me of London, and because nostalgia hit me pretty hard I decided to share some info and pictures from my trip in December when I attended JADE Winter Meeting. There are thousands of guides about London and you can read alot on Wikipedia about the town, but I will share my personal opinions about the city.

My general opinion about London is that it’s one damn crowded city, filled with lots of people from all over the world, pretty expensive and let’s face it pretty amazing.

When in London do as locals do. You should definitely try some fish and chips. I’m not a big fan of fried fish but it was an ok meal while admiring one of the local parks.

If you have the time and money go to the London Eye, but remember that you have to book the tickets because it’s usually pretty crowded. You’ll have the chance to see London from 135 m above, admire the South Bank of River Thames, the House of Parliament, the MI6 headquarter, Big Ben and many wonderful buildings.

One of the things that impressed me about London is that people like to queue and stay in lines. And they have a passion for following rules- which rarely happens in Romania.

The subway is huge, and in some parts looks bizzare, but you have to admire the fact that the galleries have personality- some funny posters on the walls, the enormous number of ads, the local artists and of course hearing the famous MIND THE GAP each time the doors of the subway open in front of you. The tube is always crowded so don’t think if you avoid the traffic hours everything will run smooth. A thing that bothered me was when they closed some metro stations because of 10 cm of snow, but you have to appreciate the fact that they do care about safety.

And women although they are beautiful and fashionable are insanly crazy. To give you an example: we were waiting in front of a club, at around 1-2 degrees Celsius and we notice in line a bunch of girls in short/club dresses and in sandals. Did I mention the fact that it was raining? At first I thought this was an isolated case, but when I started seing during the day women wearing sandals during winter with stokings and a t-shirt under a tiny jacket I felt the cold going through my head.

And if you want to go shopping during discount periods thing again. You may find some nice clothes at good prices but you have to be prepared for a fight. From what I could notice women are pretty mean when it comes to clothing. I saw two girls fighting for a pair of jeans, and they were verbally violent. For me it was a funny situation, but I left before I could see the dramatic end- they were really passionate about that single pair of pants.

Another thing that impressed me was the large number of people that were jogging in parks – like Hyde Park - dressed only in shorts and a t-shirt. Again it was winter, you could see that their skin was red from the cold, but they persevered in running during that shitty weather (pardon the language). We were looking at them and admired their passion, but we decided we should go and have a hot drink before  having hyperthermia. We are too lazy to run at freezing temperatures.

And last but not least, when in London you shouldn’t miss the opportunity of taking a photo with a red phone booth, a hot english man/woman, take a double decker to enjoy the view but pick a sunny day if you plan to sit on the upper level, visit Buckingham Palace, go to Soho, drink some awsome tea, visit all the cool museums- including the Tower of London, go to London Bridge, to Covent Garden and get wasted in one of the lovely old pubs. And buy an umbrella for all the cool walks around the city to discover the true spirit of London.

Brussels

Brussels (or Bruxelles in French)  is an amazing city- not because of its architecture, or the fact that it is the home of the European Union and headquarter of NATO- but because of its amazing people I’ve met there and the experience of getting to know them better. Awsomeness is really one of the principles of the Jade network.

Brussels is the biggest city of Belgium with more than 1.8 million people. The city is populated mainly by business people from all the corners of the world- so you shouldn’t be surprised to hear all types of foreing languages – even ones with names you cannot even pronounce ) ! And also you can see many French people, Dutch people and also many Germans. When it comes to the minorities present in the city I can mention the Turks and the Arabs – which are very traditionalists. It’s not an unusual thing to see women wearing a burka on the streets and I respect their choice to keep their privacy inside their homes. Everyone has the right to wear whatever they want on their heads!

Brussels’ architecture is not that impressive because I find it similar to Bucharest’s architecture which is not at all homogeneous… The styles of the buildings are mixed- you can see an old beautiful building located close to a skyscraper, some neglected houses near a futuristic establishement. And this is not good! I would rather see an old part of the town and the corporate part as a distinct one, cause Brussels has many things to offer- including some big parks – at Botanique station you can find a botanical garden. What I noticed in Brussels is that people love contemporary art- which is displaced everywhere from parks to different corners of the street.

Brussels has also a harsh weather. I got a wonderful cold because I’ve put too much faith in a fainted Sun. And it usually rains a lot in the autumn, which sucks… I had to postpone my trip to Bruges (Belgium Northern Venice)  because it was raining that day and you cannot experience the visit there if you have to hide from the annoying rain !

When in Brussels do as the locals do (“when in Rome do as Romans do”) :

• You must eat at a pitta place- the food is quite cheap and good- but too spicy for me !
• Brussels waffles are great! So when you go you must not miss them and put some chocolate on them!
• Also if you want to try bizzare beers you can go to Delirium bar where you can try from thousand types of beers -some really good and strong and others more exotic- the cherry (known as Kriek) and strawberry ones are ok, but the one with coconut and honey taste even worse than medicines- take for instance cough syrup which is actually better than these 2 beers…
• You must visit the Atomium- which is Brussels Symbol. It is a 103-metre  tall structure that was built for the 1958 World’s Fair. It consists of nine steel spheres connected by tubes, and forms a model of an iron crystal. I got there at 5 p.m. so I actually couldn’t visit it because it was closed. So you must go there before it closes (around 5 p.m.).
• You must eat chocolate and buy some for your friends and family. I understood that Neuhaus chocolate is the best, but you should keep in mind that it is quite expensive.
• Take the subway- you will have a change to interact with the locals. The subway is not confindend only to the underground – it actually goes on the surface above roads and even houses. You can wave people from flats while sitting in the subway ) but don’t expect a positive feedback

And I’ve talked too much. I must show you some pictures. Enjoy!

How long

( Play and read. These are my thoughts and have a subjective nature)

We all love to travel but hate the moment when we have to say goodbye. I am not good at saying goodbye and I hate the akward silence before the departure- because we would like to say soo many things but time is pressing us and the hugs seem to short …  And everything is more difficult when we read the sadness of those who we leave behind and realise that we won’t see each other in a long time.  Or we just look and try to print the moment in our memory to be sure we won’t forget all the good times we had and hope that time will not be cruel with us.

Saying goodbye is like a break up… We don’t want to get attached any more because break-ups are hurtful and we don’t want to see how time is changing people. But people do change no matter what and they are always surprising, as surprising and amazing as the countless trips we enjoy making.
The problem is that we need to find ourselves, this is our main travel… and the only way we can do this is by saying many goodbyes.