…a new year has come and I finally found a bit of time to write n this blog. DOn’t ask what’s been happening since november 13th…let’s just say I’ve had a TON of things to do. Exams after exams, Christmas preparations, the Christmas tree, job hunting, cooking, cleaning, studying…and I can go on and on and on. Maybe 2009 wasn’t my best year. I doubt that there are many people who can say it was their best year. Economic downfall all around the world brought with itself other kinds of falls for everyone. And if you mix that with government crisis and very, very narrow minded people in charge, you get Romania.

But that is not my point .As you may have heard, I’ve moved on, 2000 kms to the west. Is it good, is it bad? Let’s say it’s interesting. Switzerland is the land where you can find I guess 200 types of cheese, just as many of chocolate and where people who check for your traveling pass in the bus are polite and nice. It is also the country where they value Swiss citizenship immensely, although at the same time they have an enormous amount of foreigners. I’d say it’s a love-hat relationship. But so far I like it.

I like the small city I live in, the small shops that are nothing like the hypermarkets back home, the fact that if I miss the ‘big city feel’ I can hop in the car and be in Geneva or Zurich in less than 2 hours…I do not like it though that most of their movies are translated, even in cinemas. I am not impressed.

Plans for 2010? I’ve taken up a bit of knitting, I want to improve my French and (reluctantly) start learning German. I want to move more (and, with my new Wii Fit, I think I just might) and laugh more. I want to care less about others’ opinions and go crazy more often. Let go. I want to travel as much as possible (I have miles to gather now, too!) and blog more. It’s sunny outside. I think this will be a good year.

So, I am sorry all for this long pause, but I’m determined to make it up to you. Right now I am on vacation and I’ll feel more creative I hope.

I hope Santa was nice to all of you and that 2010 treats us all better.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Note: I specifically mentioned ‘the movie’, since I am planning to read the book very soon and I am sure I will want to post about that too.

There are fewer than 4000 Jews left alive in Poland today. There are more than 6000 descendants of the Schindler Jews.

Schindler’s List is one of the movies you have to see in a lifetime. Maybe more than once. It is an incredible film. It’s not very original, though. It’s about the Holocaust. The Jews. Auschwitz. Death of millions of people. But the way this movie is made…no other can compare to it. The fact that it is all black and white, with just a hint of colour now and then (to emphasize a particular red coat) gives it more depth. And the fact that great actors are in it, including the ever surprising Ralph Fiennes and the incomparable Liam Neeson just adds so much more to the movie as a whole.

The story? It’s the true story of Oskar Schindler (beautifully portrayed by Liam Neeson), a Czech born Nazi who sees the war as an opportunity for fast profit. He therefore hires Jews as cheap labour force for his factory in occupied Poland and aims to get as rich as possible. Time is passing by and the Jews are first evacuated from the ghetto in Krakow and sent to labour camps. A while later, Auschwitz concentration camp was established and thousands of Jews were gassed and incinerated afterwards, in an attempt of ‘race purification’.

But Oskar Schindler was different. He was a womanizer, a party man, he liked people to work for him and he liked making profit. However, he also had a heart. And when he saw the horrors that were happening around him, he thought his money could be put to better use. It is how he decided to ‘buy’ more than 1100 Jews from the Nazis as workers for his factory. He even promised to make ammunition instead of pots, but no decent missile ever came out of his factory. Together with his loyal accountant, a Jew himself (Ben Kingsley acts superbly in this role), they made a list of people who were to come to work for him instead of going to Auschwitz. The list, itself, was life.

The plot itself however is not the essence of this movie. Else way, there wouldn’t have been necessary 3 hours and 9 minutes of film. It’s all about the Holocaust: the terror, the pain, the merciless nazis. And this is where Ralph Fiennes comes into the movie. He portrays Amon Goeth, a commandant of the Nazi army, thirsty for blood and death, killing for his own pleasure, hating everything in relation to the Jews. He likes Schindler, develops a friendship with him, but never once does it occur to him that Oskar is trying to save the Jews instead of killing them. And here, Ralph Fiennes portrays one of the most loath-able characters ever. Cold, purely evil, Amon kills for pleasure. He adores the fact that he can kill anyone for no reason. He feels powerful through other people’s tragedies. He was, unfortunately, real.

There is more about this movie than the story of Oskar Schindler. There are the horrors of the Holocaust: the killing, the humiliation, the cruelty, the torture, the horrible feeling you get when you’re watching that all of this is true and once happened. That the extras that are being killed every few minutes actually portray real people that din nothing wrong except being in the wrong place, at the worst of times.

To see this movie, you need to prepare. You need to understand what you are about to witness, that one of history’s darkest periods will be revealed to you in its ugliest form. There is not much actual violence in the film. But there is no need. You can feel the horror and pain and desperation without seeing blood all over. You know it is there, there’s no need for them to show it.

To be honest, I think I would like to see this movie once more. Because somewhere in the back of my mind I am still hoping to understand why. It probably is pointless, I know. But one can only hope. And I also think we should all see this movie. It is there to remind us, to make us understand what huge mistakes were made and to teach us not to ever do them again.

I cannot end this review without mentioning Spielberg. Usually, I am not a fan of his work. But this is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. The music (John Williams) and cinematography (Janusz Kaminski) are also works of art. Everything comes together wonderfully.

You can buy this movie on Amazon.co.uk.

This is what a cat does when it’s betrayed. That guy got an earful!

Professional dancing meets Michael Jackson. Nothing new here, but I do love their interpretation. Oh, I really do miss dancing…

You can find Michael’s albums on amazon.co.uk. Check out my widget

…and not just for anybody. A Gerorgetown undergraduate seems overwhelmed by all the work he’s got to do for himself (e.g. schedule a haircut) that he needs a personal assistant to do it for him. That-a boy. For 12$/hour, I wonder if he got any responses…

Job Description:

I am a Georgetown undergrad student and part time employee in the financial services industry. I am looking for someone to take care some of my everyday tasks for 1 hr a day, 5 hrs/ week, $12/hr. I live on campus which would make things very easy convenient for a Georgetown student. The normal pay per week will be $60 ($300/month), even though on occasion it will be possible to work additional hours and/or receive bonuses at my discretion.

The schedule is completely flexible because I do not need to be around when you do the work. You can even spread it out over the course of the day. As my PA you will receive an email once a day by 9:00 am with a task list for that day and a time estimate for each task. Important tasks will be bolded on the list and must be done that day (even though everything on the list should theoretically be finished on a daily basis). At the end of the day you will send me an email telling me what tasks are incomplete or that all tasks have been completed.

Tasks such as doing laundry that involve a lot of waiting around (time when you could be doing other tasks or doing your own stuff) will be counted for the approximate amount of time it would take to do the labor involved. For instance, laundry will be counted for half an hour even though a laundry cycle takes 1.5 hrs to complete.

Job Requirements:

PA example tasks -Organize closet -make bed -Drop off / pick up dry cleaning -Drop me off / pick me up from work -Do laundry -Fill up gas tank -bring car for servicing -schedule appointment for haircut -Pay parking tickets -manage electronic accounts -shopping and running errands -other random tasks.

Preference will be given to applicants who are comfortable with city driving (car will be provided) and who are available when I need to be picked up and dropped off for work. Preference will also be given to Georgetown undergrads for convenience.

Available Openings: 1

Hours: 3.0 to 7.0 hours per week

Compensation: $10.00/hour to $12.00/hour, Occasional Bonuses

Start Date: Immediately

End Date: End of School Year

Time Frame: Academic Year

Quite the entertainer, isn’t he?

This is what I came across, while surfing in the beautiful blue waters of the world wide web…

A Modern Fairy Tale

Once upon a time
In a land far away,
A beautiful, independent,
Self-assured princess
Happened upon a frog as she sat
Contemplating ecological issues
On the shores of an unpolluted pond
In a verdant meadow near her castle.

I don’t fucking think so.

Don’t you just love it? Wish my mom told me that story when I was young…

Well, this isn’t a post about me stating my reasons for moving to another country. I don’t even know yet if it’s for good. I don’t even know if I will still like it after a few months. I’m taking it all in, tiny bits at a time, waiting to see what it’s like.

What I like? The people, oh so friendly and nice to you, even if maybe you can’t always find your words, even if you can only speak a little French and much more English, even if you can’t find the right coins (and they do have a ton of coins!), even if you can’t make up your mind about the kind of cake you want to buy. I’m definitely not saying everyone is perfect, you get the occasional bored saleswoman and the angry driver, but you just let them go. Because it’s not worth it.

I also like love their chocolate, all creamy and nice, even if it’s one of the cheapest. Actually, I have come to notice food here is quite good quality, even if it’s the cheapest you find. Then again, their cheapest is quite expensive. Unfortunately. I know prices in Romania are rising through the roof, but they have yet to match the ones here. Especially when it comes to food. And you can’t replace that. I mean, I could always use a diet, but I don’t realy think this is the answer.

I like that we work hard at the University, that I feel I work hard for my grades, that if I study hard I can make something I am really proud of. Not that I wasn’t proud of my University studies in Bucharest, ’cause I worked hard for those too. It’s just that no one but me knows that. But I’m really not going to start writing about this.

I like the people I met here, colleagues and Erasmus students, international students, Swiss students. All hardworking, though a lot of fun after classes. I wasn’t expecting much, but they are really awesome!

This is not, however, the reason of this post. I wanted to post some pictures from Auvernier, a beautiful little city near Neuchatel, where you can actually go to on foot. It’s tiny, smells like wine (it’s harvesting season) and has an amazing park. You can see swans, ducks and other birds, you can just walk by the lake, meet the most beautiful cat in the world, then go home to warm up. I think this is actually why I moved here. For the sightseeing )

First, to get to Auvernier, you need to pass by these beautiful, ripe vineyards…

Then you get to these charming little streets…

You get to the lake…oh, I love this lake…so beautiful and ever so changing…

With its swans and  ducks (the grey ones are ‘ugly ducklings’, future beautiful swans )

And then, THEN I met the most beautiful cat ever…

I wanted to take her home so bad, I wanted to just run away with her and make her mine…I just loved her…

Although she was a bit Garfield like … (but she was not annoyed, even if she seems so )

We found some beautiful birds as well (no idea what it’s called) in the sky…

And we ended our evening by the lake again…

So yes, I think that’s why I moved here…

Enjoy!

Although I was pretty sure that I, together with Ratatouille are the great examples for this theory, it seems others think that they are the reason someone came up with it. Apparently though, they got much better at it and got to be featured in one of my favourite magazines, Good Food that is. I really miss it to be honest, maybe one of the few things I actually do miss when it comes to Romania.

Presenting you today, from the “cooking because I like it” series, I give you:

Easy Peasy: this wonder-woman can cook, have a job, have cats and even a husband  - all at the same time! Really nice blog, really yummy and fast recipes and amazingly beautiful cats!

Mazi: another wonder woman, handling it all plus cooking on top. She really haz it when it comes to cooking, she really haz it when it comes to writing.

Good job girls, you make my day brighter every time I read your entries. Keep up the good work!

I saw this at Alyna’s and couldn’t resist picking it up for my blog as well. Although, unlike her, I DO know what it’s like to have a cat. Or two. I really miss them actually. Oh well, for those of you who don’t know what it’s like, you can get inspired here. It really is CLOSE to the truth