Pablo Neruda

This one is for you, dear Tsoki. You introduced me to this great poet 15 years ago and I´ve searched comfort in his verses one too many times. As much as I wish it weren´t so, my inner frame is pretty frail and I suffer compulsively, almost like I´m enjoying it. Anyways. This is how I feel today:

Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines

by Pablo Neruda

 

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,’The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.’

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

xxx, Alina

Christmas Party with the Office

I don´t have an office (Thank God for that!), but I do have interpreter colleagues and we´re holding our Christmas party in January. Can´t wait, I just need to survive the holiday “cheer” first. I used to love Christmas, now I feel like the Grinch. 😉

And as you know, I love dressing up, in fact I never let a chance pass me by, which means I find myself overdressed all the time. 😉 Sometimes, people come over to compliment me and they often catch me off guard. Everybody wants to be a diva, but not all the time, right? 😉

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New Year´s Eve outfit

Well Christmas is not here yet and I hope it never comes. My life is a complete mess for the time being, but dreaming of clothes is therapy, right?!

So if I were invited to a New Year´s Party, I would be wearing this:

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Sequin dress- Tom Ford

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Romania

I was inspired by Amsterdamming´s amazing post on our mother country and thought I´d drop you a couple of words on our national day. Romania is the country of my birth, the one that outlines my outer frame, as well as my innermost parts of my soul.

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Christmas gifts for her

The jolly season is around the corner and I´ve put together a couple of gift ideas for the ladies. For my part, I can´t wait! I don´t think it´ll be a very generous Santa, but I´m sure I´ll get a couple of scented candles and perhaps a new sweater, in fact, I´m gonna make sure of that! 😉 

 

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Second love

For all of you, lovers of vintage and mid-century design, I have a secret to share: Second Love from Bergen! ❤ It´s the kind of stylish, refined shop I´d run myself, if I was that much into sales and people, a perfect mix of high-end designer wear, Norwegian 70´s classics and hand-crafted products. IMG_8093 Continue reading

Rainy Bergen

One of the good things about being a freelancer, besides taking a nap and baking cupcakes at noon once in a blue moon, is that I get to travel to places I haven´t been before or, even better, places I love already! ❤IMG_8073.jpg Continue reading

American pancakes

How y’all doing? I´ve had a pretty intense week, worked hard enough, received the wood we´d ordered (and helped carrying it with my frail hands and all!), learned how to do the VAT on my own, baked a cake and I´m still alive! 😉 In between I devoured Christmas magazines, fell asleep watching River and messed up a couple of dates- a trial I thought to be this week turned out is due in January! :-/ Haha! Still, good it wasn´t the other way around..

I love Saturdays, they usually start in bed with coffee and Instagram, then I make some breakfast, if I can be bothered, not a morning person at all, listening to Madeleine Peyroux or Daniela Andrade, to get me in the mood. Today was one of those lucky breakfast days, I´d been fancying some American pancakes for ages now! So easy to make, I don´t know what kept me so long from trying! Do give them a chance! 😉

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Chocolate cake with meringue top

This cake is the bomb! Reading the Norwegian recipe on Mat på bordet made me so curious, I just had to try it myself! I mean I love meringue and dark chocolate, but a combination of the two?! Divine! 😉

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A candle-lit get-together

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Yesterday we invited some friends over for a cosy dinner, to laugh away a dark November Sunday. I made boeuf bourguignon and served it with with red wine, French baguette and butter, in my grandma´s china. Now that´s big for me, since I normally can´t even remember to buy napkins, so everybody´s used to gifting me that every once in a while, or else I present them for a big fat roll of toilet paper. 😉  So there was a festive atmosphere, candle light, “magic bubble water” (we finally got ourselves one of these bubbly water machines), wine and beef stew. Throw in a couple of loud friends, a lovable crew the lot of them, Sam at our feet and Beo stealing our seat as soon as it was left unattended for 5 seconds, and you´ve got the perfect recipe for a long night with lots of fun!

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