A short getaway



Today is my first official day on holiday, and the weather has been lousy, with lots of clouds and a chilly wind. I was hoping spring would arrive soon...
I've sort of made a list of the things that I would like to do during this short holiday:
- take lots of good pictures
- update the blog more frequently
- cook, cook and cook
- study Japanese and Catalan
- start to eat fish (I used to hate it)
- have fun and relax

I really needed this week off, since I have been crazy-busy lately and I was starting to feel a lack of energy whenever I was at work, or during my Catalan classes. I really need to recover strength and not think about work for some days.



So, for my first day I decided to take my bike and see how life looked like from the beach. At around 7 pm there weren't many people on the beach, due to the weather I suppose, so I was able to enjoy the place. This will be one of the last times the beach will be so empty since good weather is on its way and there's really nothing like a solitary beach and grey weather....



What do you think? Are you planning something specials for this Easter break?

Snow in Barcelona

De umai life

2 posts in 2 days! Wow! Sounds promising!
I quickly took these photos just before rushing to work.
Today was special, the snow started to fall and covered the city.
Snow here it's very strange and everyone in the street was excited. I was pretty excited myself and I started calling everyone to inform about this very uncommon event.

De umai life

But also, the public transports crashed and I was sent home early from work for lack of students.
Oh snow!
I have to go and finish some translation work before midnight. So long!

Here we try again

De umai life

It's been a really long time. I didn't even started and I left it immediately.
Many things happened. Life has happened.
A new place to call home, or nest. A new challenging and strenuous job, which I like but that has been sucking my energies and preventing me to enjoy the many beautiful things around me.
For this reason, I have decided I want to try and regain possession of my time or, at least, take a few moments to breathe and nourish some passions I have.
Hence, the photo I uploaded to (re)open the blog: a few things I enjoy and make me happy on my dinner table: the yellow blooming narcissus, the newly released Joanna Newsom record I bought today (which I'm loving already) and the relaxing pleasure of sipping tea while listening to some music and watching the gray sunday weather...

A short trip to London

So...the first real post! Just about time!

Last weekend I went to London to support my boyfriend J. who was attending the European Hardcourt Bike Polo Championship as part of one of the two teams from Barcelona. I took this occasion as an excuse to visit London again after my last visit to the city 5 years ago and to engage in some "wild" shopping.

The games went quite well (the teams from Barcelona achieved the 11th and 21st place despite the fact that they've been practicing just for a few months) and, despite the usual bad weather, at least in my opinion (I am not used to wear sweaters in August!), we had a good time and I was actually surprised by the incredible range of good food we ate during the trip since my memories of "London food" were all quite bad: all I remember is having to eat Fish and Chips all the time or finding very bad and expensive restaurants...but maybe at that time I was too picky when it came to food...

In this occasion we ate 2 nights at a delicious (and surprisingly cheap) Turkish restarant, had some Tomato and Ricotta Quiche in a small French cafè in the Hackney Borough and, overall, I saw a very impressive range of nice places where to eat. That is, they were all offering an incredible variety of "foreign" cuisines: French, Chinese, Vietnamese, even Afghan cuisine...I think that this is pretty amazing.

Another thing I noticed: the word "organic" is everywhere, the same here for "biologic/ecologic"!

But, all in all, after the initial excitement, I came to think that London is not that different from Barcelona: of course is much bigger, the aesthetics of the building is different, there is a wider etnic variety, just to name a few differences...but when I was riding the bus that will get me where I wanted to go I felt the same way as if I were riding a bus in Barcelona: the traffic, the same unsimpathetic people who just want to get seated and be left alone no matter what...
Don't get me wrong, I like living in a big city, though it might be tough sometimes, but this time I came back home happier, feeling that I am not missing anything where I live.

Some food suggestions:

Anatolia Ocakbasi
253 Mare Street, Hackney, London E8

Their hummus, Turkish Pizza and Lentil Soup were delicious! And very cheap!

L'eau a La Bouche
49 Broadway Market, Hackney, London, E8

French style dining and breakfast, not so cheap but they offer nice quiches, pastries and sandwiches!

Hello World!
I have finally decided to become a member of the large blogosphere.

I am an Italian girl living in Spain, Barcelona, dreaming of flying to Japan some time soon.

I start this blog as a mean to feel more useful, since I still haven't found where I belong to in society.

Here I want to collect and talk about those "passions" which, for the time being, don't seem to fit in my "standard" carrer path but still need their way out.

So be prepared to hear everything I know and love about
Food, Photography, Japan and Pretty things.