The weather is changing. Until now we had beautiful sunshine, high temperatures but today that changed. The sky was overcast, and when I returned from the lecture it started raining. Now, I like rain, but mostly when I’m indoors, without an urgent plan of getting out of the house. Another downside, the low pressure gave me a nasty headache. So as soon as I got home, snuggled under the covers and had a “short” 2 hour nap.
April 13th, 2011
Hungarian adventure – episode 5
April 11th, 2011
On desserts
Anyone who knows me, knows I’m not a huge fan of desserts – chocolate (especially), cake (except the ones my Mom makes). Pudding seems to be the exception, something that Nana is well aware of – 6 words – Pizza Pub all-you-can-eat 
OK, I like ice-cream, but it’s not like a develop a crazy obsession for it, like I know some women do over chocolate – mention the “c” word and some of them get this dreamy look and you can practically see them drool (a fine visual, I know).
April 9th, 2011
Hungarian adventure – episode 4
What is wrong with me? OK, don’t start, it was a rhetorical question, and if it wasn’t, the list of answers to that particular question would be a mile long. I realized today that my obsession with traveling has decreased. Maybe it has to do with me being actually out of the country. Or maybe the tiredness I managed to gather lately has finally smacked me around the head and got all my circuits scrambled. I don’t know, but the fact is, I don’t feel that desire to move around that much. Of course, I ride the subway twice a day (at least) and every time I go up and down the escalator I can’t help but miss London a little bit. Maybe I feel like I’ve settled, that this is where I should be. I don’t know. I’m not a mind-reader, even my own mind is a mystery to me sometimes.
April 6th, 2011
Hungarian adventure – episode 3
The Research Building
The other day I have decided not to post everyday because, frankly, there isn’t much information I can post, unless I do something cool like visiting the Holocaust museum, or eat at a Thai restaurant (which I’ll be doing soon and writing about it, just to make a few people jealous 
).
The first day at the Institute was…different from what I was used to – go figure. When I reached the imposing 22 stories high building, the first order of business was to get to the 10th floor. The elevators here are tricky (and fast) – there is a panel of numbers, you dial what floor you want to reach, and the display shows you which elevator to take, this basically removed the issue of people pressing the numbers inside the elevator. Very neat. I met the director, a very cool gentleman I might add, and after I spoke a little about myself, he presented the workings of the Institute. I was assigned to a lab, and met a couple of people, who were kind enough to share their knowledge with me. The lunch is served at the cafeteria, but boy what a cafeteria. You have the choice of the daily menu or other foods, which are priced by their weight – a strange, yet effective concept – you pig out, you pay!
April 3rd, 2011
Hungarian adventure – episode 2
After a tiring day I was ready to hit the sack, as soon as I took a well deserved shower to wash away the travel grime. When my head hit the pillow (and after some minor readjustment of said sleeping article – it’s very soft and I don’t like soft pillows) I fell asleep. Well it didn’t last for long – a little after midnight, the guys upstairs decided that it was too quiet, so they started laughing REALLY hard, banging things. I’m pretty sure a serious amount of alcohol was involved in the action. I got really angry. Not just at them, but to the whole idea that you need to get shit-faced drunk to have fun. I know a lot of people would disagree, that drinking is part of the fun, blah blah blah. And no, I’m not so prude, during my college years I drank just like the rest of them, but I knew my limit. What’s the point in getting so drunk that you start acting crazy and annoy other people? Not to mention the serious hangover the next day (I hope my neighbors will suffer from one) – no, I’m not sending out bad karma (I know it kicks you in the derrriere – I just love this word) but I can’t stand being woken up by disrespectful people. Now I got close to what Mike was feeling when he spent a night in a dorm. On the bright side, the commotion didn’t last for long, so I was able to go back to sleep, but kept having crazy dreams.
April 2nd, 2011
Hungarian adventure – episode 1
My dear readers (few but precious to me)!
As of now I am writing from my hotel room in Budapest. How I got here you ask? Well wonder no more, cause I’m about to tell you! Some while back (February that is) I entered a scholarship “contest” at the University I work at, and after some debating they let me know that I won. Me. ME. OH JOY!!! Of course there were others as well, but I do want to feel special, because I AM special – hear that everyone? All this said and done, I bought my plane ticket (with one luggage to hand in – ugh) and started counting down the days till my departure.
March 15th, 2011
Entertainment week with the parents
Wow, another week has passed. I am falling behind with my writing, but I have legitimate reasons (don’t I always )…After the Oscars passed and I did my little celebration dance, I was off to work, ready for the 12 hour “labor” that was thrown my way. All was fine until around 5 pm when it hit me. Hard. Even my students said I look exhausted – well you sleep 8 hours in 3 days and look fresh as a daisy! Tuesday was spent is almost the same fashion, and by the time Wednesday rolled by I was more than ready for a day off – the first in 3 weeks 
Blessed Thursday was the day but of course it was spent while resting actively – translation = cleaning my laptop. The poor dear has not been cleaned since its purchase (some 2 years and a couple of months), so I tackled the process of removing ALL keys from the keyboard, giving them a good scrub.
February 28th, 2011
And the Oscar goes to…
As any normal human being, when you feel tired, you sleep, right? Right? Well, normalcy is highly overrated 
So here we are, it’s 3 am, and I’m in front of the TV and computer, ready to share with the world who are the lucky winners today. The focus is on the Kodak Theatre in LA, for the 83rd Annual Academy Award. I tuned in just in time to hear Gwyneth Paltrow‘s answer to “If you could sing a duet with anyone in the whole world, who would it be? Jay Z, because it’s an interesting combination, I think he’s a genius”…well, good luck to ya Gwyn.
February 26th, 2011
Failure
Dear all, I have failed you. Back in the day I promised you that I would watch all the movies nominated for the Oscars. Well I tried, I really have. But as you know things don’t always go as planned – there’s even that saying “how do you make God laugh? plan something”.
I will not try to find excuses. I watched 4 out of 10 movies and threw in my 2 cents. There were 6 more to watch but I just couldn’t. Lack of patience, lack of time and had I watched them – lack of sleep. These 2 weeks were, let’s put it mildly, brutal. Work days of 12 hours, by the end of which I just wanted to crash into bed, even seriously contemplating the “no shower before bed” option – but I took them, no worries. And when I didn’t work or teach, I had work cut out for me, again related to work or teaching, or to the upcoming grand hop – specialty exam.
February 21st, 2011
Oscar double feature – The King’s speech and Toy Story 3
Since it’s almost a week (just) until the Oscars, todays post features 2 movies.
The Kings Speech left me…speechless. It was one of those movies that got me hooked from the first scene. The idea was simple – the Duke of York (Colin Firth) has a speech impediment that has deep roots (We find later on) and it has been haunting him. So enter dr. Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) who will help him through the movie to deliver a kick-ass speech at the end.
February 18th, 2011
A very special person in my life
I realized that I’ve been talking about important places (San Francisco, London), important activities (reading, writing, traveling, listening to music, making fun of people ), important persons in my life (Mom, Dad, my friends) but I have yet to mention a very dear person to me, who unfortunately passed away, this year being her 10 year anniversary. I’m talking about my great-grandmother (she was my Dad’s granny).
February 13th, 2011
Nina’s swan song
I got to finally see Black Swan, to see what all the commotion was about, as part of my promise to see all Oscar-nominated movies. First of all I like Natalie Portman, and besides thinking that she’s a great actress, I also think she’s freaking HOT (hear that Keira Knightley fans? this is gorgeous – anorexic body is not).
Even though I’m not a fan of ballet (I would sleep through a show I think), and have heard the story of the Swan Princess (even seen the cartoons which end with happily ever after, go figure), I thought this movie was….different (still having a hard time deciding whether I like it or not).
February 11th, 2011
When dreams clash with reality
I feel (no, I KNOW) that my dream is to travel as much as possible, for as long as it’s humanly possible. True, there are some factors that determine me not to follow up on that dream (just now) – plans for an unknown future, tying up loose ends (need to finish my residency), saving up money for travel. The truth is I don’t have stuff to sell in order to finance my travels, nor have the skills to work while traveling (I’m just a young doctor, lab doctor no less who enjoys the world of tiny organisms).
So money is a big issue for me – of course if I can save up enough I would probably work where I travel in trade for food/lodging. But that would last for a while, then what? (I need to stop planning so far ahead). And then there’s that feeling of wanting to settle down at some point and start a family (which is just as big of a dream as my traveling one). But I don’t want to sacrifice one for the other. I want to experience the world, I want to learn from it. If I quit on my dream always waiting for the next job opportunity/relationship/and “what if”, my life will pass me by. And each day will make the regret sink even deeper.
February 9th, 2011
Why I want to see Hawaii
Whenever I hear Paradise, Hawaii comes to mind. Islands, volcanoes, surfing, hula girls, beaches, pineapples – what’s not to like?
Since it’s a VERY sunny place, my heart yearns to be there. I’ve heard that flying there takes A LOT of time, but luckily I can entertain myself (watch a movie, read a book, sleep, imagine the lives of the other passengers and their reason to go to Hawaii, chatting with other people).
February 7th, 2011
Why do I love to travel?
This is a tough question for me, and I think that each and every person who is traveling or dreaming of it has come across this particular enigma. The reasons are multiple – see the world, enjoy the food, meet new people, go home and brag about seeing the world, eating crazy yet delicious food and meeting new people.
You could say that traveling is in my blood – my grandfather back in the day, got to see part of Europe and on several occasions took my Mom with him. Mom also loves to travel, yet the opportunity doesn’t show itself that often due to work (too much if you ask me) and also because my Dad is the type of let’s-stay-by-the-pool-vacation kind guy – granted he ‘travels’ while working, sitting in a blasted car almost all day, while Mom does her work sitting 8 (sometimes more) hours in an office. Therefore the vacation ideas are pretty different, opposite I might add. I tend to lean towards Mom’s way of traveling.
February 5th, 2011
The Bucket List
While the idea of a bucket list is not original, there were some factors that determined me to create my own: the movie The Bucket list, featuring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman; the second factor was a blog by a talented young lady called Elle (check out her blog here ).
I know this list is not set in stone, therefore changes will occur, and I will keep you up to date. It will contain all the places/things I want to see/do. So, here goes:
1. Lose the belly.
2. Swim with the dolphins (sharks have no appeal to me, but if the chance presents itself, then sure).
3. See New Zealand, and get a hei matau necklace.
4. Return to the US and (re)visit: San Francisco, Chicago, Orlando (Disneyland).
5. Get a scholarship abroad.
6. Write a book and have it published.
7. Break into the travel writing business (looking out for opportunities).
February 4th, 2011
The Land of the Long White Cloud
The Land of the Long White Cloud is the translation to Aotearoa, which is the Maori name for New Zealand, where the kiwi live.
Why would I want to go there? For several reasons – it is the remotest place from my country (of course if I was to travel, that criteria changes), the landscape is just amazing, the cool jewelry (called hei matau) and for the sheep .
So let’s break it down – the journey to NZ is pretty long – 2 days of flying (and have the chance of sitting next to a hyperactive kid, you’re all set 
), therefore I think it’s one of the remotest place from my country (and I’m sure the trip would cost me an arm, a leg and my first born, but traveling requires sacrifices, right?).
February 1st, 2011
why not hate editors
Recently I contacted the team behind OrdinaryTraveler when they posted, let’s call it an ad, on Twitter, looking for guest posts on Africa. After a short debate (should I write/should I not write?) I took a leap of faith and sent them a message, explaining that I’ve been to *then conflict-free* Egypt, giving them a rundown of places I’ve visited. Much to my surprise (that somebody notices me 
) they answered back in a flash, requesting the material. Naturally I had the post here, but I felt that for a guest blog, especially on a fantastic one like theirs, a new story is much more appropriate, besides, they advised me to change it as Google frowns upon duplicate content, and they were 100% right.
January 27th, 2011
Inception – what’s real and what’s not
One candidate for the Best Motion Picture category at the Annual Academy Awards is Inception, it was also my first choice in the plan to keep my promise . Before I set out to watch it, I’ve heard shared opinions about it, but they fell into 2 categories: those who loved it and those who didn’t, mostly because they didn’t get the idea, so I decided to watch it with an open mind.
There were a few basic ideas, at least how I understood it – always start with the basics, be careful with burying things in your subconscious as they will resurface with a vengeance, so it’s better to face them instead, and, sometimes you are your worst enemy.
January 26th, 2011
Oscars (83) and a promise
The countdown has started. No, it’s not a missile launch, or rather not a NASA type missile anyway. The time has come, and the world is buzzing with excitement – the nominations for the 83rd edition of the Annual Academy Awards (or the Oscars to us non educated in the field of movie production, except Nana who is a movie wizz, or mizz ) are out.
Last year I covered an entry on the same topic, and I had a plan, just like this year, with the exception that I’m sticking to the plan and keep my promise. And when I promise something, I try my best to keep it. The promise is – I will try (as in do my best ) to watch each movie nominated for the Oscars and write a short review on each and every one.
