Polaroid your pictures

So, since i am too stressed and confused to work i decided to be totally unproductive this afternoon and after checking my mails i found this fun and totally awesome tool that allows you to convert your digital pictures into Polaroids. Check out the Poladroid tool here!

This is me in Lisbon (Portugal) last January.

That was a crazy day too, but in a good way (not like today).

I had to go there for a meeting and only had to spend one night. Here at home we left at 7 in the morning with a private plane (3 crew members for 2 persons, a huge breakfast with fresh juice, fruit salad and tons of pasteries and newspapers to read). The temperature outside was below 0 and it was snowing and freezing.

Two hours later we stepped out at Lisbon airport, clear blue skies, 16 degrees. It felt so good to leave that coat in the car and walk around in just a shirt in the sunshine, to just escape for a few hours into the summer...

I only had 2 hours inbetween 2 meetings to explore the city and i did my best. So i asked a taxi-driver to drop me at the top of the city. There were amazing views of the blue sea and the whole city. Then i made my way down to the city center, to the sea front, walked to the Monument of Columbus (i think?? or some other continent explorers...) and went back to a really boooooooooooooring meeting.

But those 2 hours just felt so good. It made me realize again how much i hate to live where i live and to spend at least 6 months every year in gloomy weather, rain, fog, snow, ice, winds .... !!! Someday i am going to move south, seriously :-)

The saddest part was to get back home and to remove the snow and ice from my car and to wear that heavy coat again.

The first day of fall

I just realized that i spent the whole day NOT thinking for one single second about the fact that yesterday was the first day of fall. WOW!

 Why is this an interesting fact?

Well, first of all because it proves how busy i am right now, i don't even get the time to linger around thinking about stuff like that. With my new boss i am really occupied at the moment, i even took stuff from work home this weekend, worked until 9 pm on friday at home (which needs a lot of motivation, once i am in my comfort zone) and even the whole sunday (which last happenend a very long time ago), but also because i kind of don't like the beginning of fall... 

I always tend to get very nostalgic about the end of summer. While i don't dislike fall that much as a season, i just hate that winter is approaching and random things such as the fact that that i cannot bake in the sun anymore after work for 1-2 hours, which is always so relaxing. I hate that i can't wear open shoes anymore. I hate that i will soon have to wear 7 layers of clothes and most of all socks... Socks are annoying, they scratch, they never stay in place and start rolling down progressively as the day moves on... Plus my skin gets so dry it litteraly peels, like after a sunburn.

These are all very undramatic facts and i know i don't have a lot to complain about in general, but it is just those little things that make me be who i am: a summer and spring person, destined to live in a climate zone where the teperature never drops below 20 degrees... 

I actually persuaded myself so far as to say that i am kind of physically allergic to winter. Seriously,... 

It all started a couple of years ago when i was diagnosed with a thyroid disfunction. So there are a lot of symptoms that come wiht this condition such as weight gain, fatigue, depression, dry skin and A HIGH SENSITIVITY TOWARDS COLD TEMPERATURES. Of course it was this fact that i always preferred to put in the foreground and even today, while the doctors keep telling me that my thyroid is fine again i still like to tell people that i am overreactive towards cold. This sometimes can go so far that i don't leave interiors for days.

This year we had quite an intense winter with long periods of very cold temperatures, very far below zero. I would get up in the morning, gaze out of the window with dispair and disgust, creep into my car that was waiting for me in my heated garage, drove to my office where my car was swallowed by the underground garage of the offices. Then i stayed inside during the whole day (i wouldn't even get out to get myself something to eat for lunch) and at the end of the day i took the office elevator to the garage, jumped into my car again and drove straight home into my garage and my heated house where i slipped under a comfy blanket to watch tv. I even convinced my boyfriend so much of my little theory, that he would walk the dog for me when i stayed at his place! Once he threatened that we wouldn't get along if i continued like that because likes to do things outside in winter, blabla,... But in the end he was too lazy himself to do anything productive involving the outdoors. Once we went shopping and i coplained the whole afternoon, i think he gave up after that and i sincerly hope he will get over it his year too.

Seriously i keep wondering if it is just an impression that i built up over the years but as soon as i am going outside into the cold i begin to become very tense, i get all crammed and all my muscles become hard and i soon begin to feel a pain in my back because i am so afraid of the cold i am walking in really weird positons, all thightened up and stuff... I wonder if i am crazy or if this is real, if this happens to other people? 

I know a lot of people who simply don't like winter that much but i am seriously in physical pain when i am outside. It might also be related to the fact that i don't like buying clothes for winter... They are so uncreative, always gray or black or brown, whereas in summer you get such a huge choice of stuff in juicy colours that you can combine with cute accessoires, loose and relaxed fittings, etc. I hate wool because it scratches and since i hate socks i even run around in winter in see-through socks you would wear with pumps. And don't even get me started on parkas and those "real winter clothes" everyone annoys me with. People keep telling me "there is no too cold, there are only wrong clothes" or crap like that... I don't listen to this. I just don't invest in a proper winterfit wardrobe because i find everything so utterly ugly and prefer to keep my money for when the spring is near. USUALLY I START FLIPPING THROUGH THE SUMMER CATALOGUES AT THE END OF JANUARY!!

Well enough about this for today. I will probably annoy everyone more then enough with this subject during the following 6 months... 

Today was actually a great day, we still have summer, it was way over 25 degrees, lots of sunshine, i could play with the dog in the garden in flip-flops and i hope i can enjoy this just a couple of days longer until it gets really ugly and depressing :-(

So i will end my post with a beautiful picture of autumn to make all of this less dramatic (i am just so sad to see all those pretty flowers that my boyfriend planted for me as a surprise slowly fade away ...).

Here comes the sun

My travels

Since i started to work i literally used almost all of my income to travel. I have been visitng most of the capitals of Europe, partially on a personal basis, sometimes also for work (but even then i tried to use all the time i had left to visit as much as i could). I hate our long and gloomy autumns and winters here in Europe, which is the main reason why I tried to "escape" at least once a year to warmer and sunnier areas of the world.

So far my favourite region remains the Carribean. I have become a "fan" when i had the chance to go on a cruise with my parents when i was 15. I got the opportunity to get a glimpse of a couple of islands and now that I live on my own I try to visit every single island in the Carribean. I am fascinated by the easy going way of live going on there "Take it easy", just relax, by the lovely people, the beautiful nature, the beaches and the pristine clear waters.

So far I have been to: Aruba, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Curaçao, Cozumel, Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Maarten, St Thomas. My next trip will probably be to Barbados.

I have visited the whole west coast of the United States from Seattle, to Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles and i have been to Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Brice Canyon.

My absolute favourite place on this continent must be New York, where i got to spend a week in April 2000.

I have only been once to the African continent (Tunesia) and I plan to head to South Africa during the next couple of years.

I also had a lovely, but short time in Thailand.

But right now I am obsessed with Australia. I plan to travel to Oz at the end of the year, I am even considering moving there, for a while or on a permant basis. I have never been there, but my instincts are telling me that i will ove it. The accents of the Australians is like music in my ears and i can't get enough of it.

But enough talking, I will try to post one single picture of every place I traveled to in the pas 20 years.

My first one will be from Corsica, my most recent trip (June/July 2009). This is an island in the Mediterranean and from all the places I have visited i can say that in my opinion it is the most diversified island. There is something for everyone: beaches, mountains, lakes, forest, trekking, beautiful old cities, lots of nice little shops and restaurants.... You will not be disappointed.