Wednesday, August 26, 2009

New beginnings, once again...

disclaimer: this entry lacks a thread. its more of a mishmash of stories with the connecting piece being, well, me. and since blogs are by nature somewhat narcissistic, i guess this is ok, but still, i apologize...

so here i am, back in cardiff. and of course, it rained today and yesterday. this means that every day i have been here, it has rained. so far it has not bothered me, but the brits constantly apologize for the weather - i find this quite amusing. i mean, shouldn't they be used to it by now? besides, outside of two days, it has also been sunny every day.
my trip back to the states was really nice. i tried to learn how to surf in san diego and while i caught lots of sun, i can't say the same about waves. i did learn how to wipe out quite well though... i saw lots of friends. said goodbyes again - this time, for a longer period most likely. then it was of to the east coast, for a quick day of quality time with the best neighBERGS of all time and to the wedding of david and frances. it was a beautiful wedding, from a to z (or maybe alef to taf...). and i was glad to be there. we even prepared a little surprise for them in their room, partially x-rated, but mostly innocent and fun...






it was really nice to see old friends from diego and davis, and the wedding was quite fun. and outside of the difficulty of having to see LAH and the repercussions of it, mostly in my head, everything went super smoothly.

the airport again proved serependitious to me. the past few flights i have met an iranian journalist who is in exile from her homeland, a gay israeli professor in liverpool, and a german girl who was photographing in wales. this time around, i didn't met anyone on my flight (except for a really drunk belgian guy who really really wanted to snuggle with me. hmmm.) instead i met a girl i knew in italy and haven't seen since. there i felt like she was my sister in a way. she even brought me a box full of baklavas back from a trip to syria, sweets that i then shared with my cooking class instructor which later led to him asking me to make them... anyway. i ran into her while checking in and we immediately recognized each other. we both were way early (very untypical of me...) and had plenty of times to sit over coffee (hc for me) and talk about life - but mostly about love and its ups and downs. it was a nice reprise from the airport air and the anxiety of leaving, that hangs in it.

upon arriving in cardiff, i went straight to work. i got my new office,

(and it has an extra desk + computer in case anyone wants to visit, hint hint) and even more exciting i got my new computer - a beautiful piece of machinery, in dreamy silver encoded with black keys (that can be lit up!!!), and equipped with a camera for those who want to skype it up! as you can tell, its my new baby. and i have welcomed it into my one-person family with a huge hug. i have also finalized an apartment - which in a twist of fate that was somewhat obvious that will happen in some fate/destiny kind of way, is the first apartment i was thinking about. that is, the one i was going to take with alex. i will get to move in there on monday... it was offered to me by them for less, much less (20% less!) till i find a roommate. i accepted on grounds that i pay a bit more, one to be fair, and two so that i can feel more comfortable taking my time looking for a roommate.

this blog entry felt a bit like writing in my diary, after a long time of not writing, summarizing different things, not truly exploring hidden corners. well, there will be some new corners soon, i promise (mostly to myself... again, blog = narcissistic).
ciao' for now...

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Prague

Some photos from Prague...
Conference was nice, very nice. Bruno gave a great talk!!!
Place your mouse arrow over each photo and look at the bottom of your web browser for a brief explanation...