Author: ghetran

My grandma

My grandma passed away yesterday night, after spending her final days in bed, the last couple of ones speaking with the dead. She would have turned 90 this summer, a long life spent as a matriarch. She was a frail little woman with a heart of gold and she ruled with a hand of steel. Nobody escaped her moral sense and we all felt her wrath at times. Nobody felt such a call to preach God´s word as she did and that made conversation with her often uncomfortable. She would lash out against my mother for using nail polish, always feel the urge to warn me against men and even beat the cats with a stick if they didn´t eat the soup she provided them with. On the other hand she was the most generous person I´ve known. She took in stray dogs and cats, gave money to beggars and made us clean our closets several times a year to give to the poor. But she was as ruthless with her sense of justice as she was funny speaking her dialect from the olden days. Woe to you who cross her!

I had a complicated relationship to my grandma. She brought me and my brother up and was affectionate to us for many years. At the same time she insisted on telling me that she didn´t like girls because they suffer and preferred my brother over me any time of the day. I never got over this fact. In addition to that, her religious convictions estranged me from her, especially when I was the object of her hate for being young and liking to dress like a girl. There was no end to God´s punishment for vanity.

As a 13 year old I moved in with my parents and kept my distance. We had a chilly relationship up until when I met Vuong. I was 23 at the time and the first thing she did was to drag me by my arm and show me all the cloth diapers she´d been saving for my children. I can still remember how touched I was. She loved me anyway.

Up until 5 years ago she´d make pancakes or donuts whenever we visited her and ask us what we wanted to bequeath from her. I chose her china and this New Year´s was the first time I used it. It reminded me of all the joyous Christmases we had in her house…

The last 5 years of her life she was mostly ill and fragile. Her God-fearing only got worse. And I never knew what to say to her. I chose not to go see her a couple of weeks ago when I was home, thinking she´d be there in December, when I´d go home for Christmas. Now I never get the chance to say Good-bye. So this is my Good-bye. Rest in peace, grandma!

 

199427_23037885056_7886_n

 

I´m back!

In case you´ve missed me, I´ve been down with a terrible cold with fever and sneezing and the whole shabam. And since I had some work to do instead of  nurturing my cold it took me ages to recover. Now I´m back on track and ready to roll!;-)

Anyway. Let me tell you about the week that passed. It kind of started on Wednesday, before that I was too sick and too tired to care about anything else than work and sleep. To sum it up, it was all about eating and socializing, as I was lucky not to have too much work on my agenda.

Wednesday- lunch with my lovely friend Elif at The Nighthawk Diner, burgers and fries. Chit chatting and chilling, the perks of being a freelancer finally pay off.

Thursday- out with my friend Kristin, dinner and margaritas at Taco Republica. It´s a fairly new and trendy eatery in Oslo, where they only serve organic food in a cosmopolitan environment.

Friday I had lots of time for my beauty sleep, but also for a walk with Sammie, his girlfriend and a couple of friends. In the evening we attended a fare-well party for a Danish friend who´s both moving back to Copenhagen and getting married. Now that´s what I call a wonderful excuse for social get-together and some bubbles!

Saturday greeted us with sunshine, Vuong took Sammy to the woods while I saw The Forsyte Saga. We then met some friends for coffee, had Chinese dim-sum  at Taste of China and made some pizza for a couple of friends in the evening.

Today was for a good day for soup and reading The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak. It´s a compelling book, but not really my type of writing, so I can’t wait to start a new one.

Here are some pictures.  Hope you had a good week!

xx, Alina

Continue reading →

Mykonos holiday retreat

This is the British couple Katie and Jonny Friedman´s paradise on earth and you can rent it for holidays if you wish! Facing the Aegean sea, the house preserves the architecture typical for Greece that the owners have spiced up with some designer classics such as George Nelson lamps, tulip chairs and so on. An ascetic feeling predominates and invites you to enjoy your leisure time.

Continue reading →

Return from Mother Country

As you might have realized, I´ve been away for a week. Back to my mother country, or, to be more precise, Bucharest. More than anything, it was a time travel- as I implied last time I mentioned my trip- to a stage in my life when the future still held everything in store and my hopes were sky-high. I´ve been living in Norway for 14 years now and I look back on my year in Bucharest with a mixture of nostalgia and of “things that could have been”.

This being said, my “future” turned out just right, my country´s, however, never raised to my expectations. Buildings are crumbling down, corruption is still everywhere, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, even the middle class seems to be flattening out into a mass of people learning how to survive with what they have.

Leaving politics and the deplorable speed at which things happen aside, Bucharest is a nice city to visit. Plenty of coffee shops, restaurants, stores and bookstores. Throw in some museums, lovely architecture in the old town and some of the city´s main streets, fairly low prices and welcoming people, there´s no reason why you shouldn´t give it a chance for a weekend or so.

I was there for a week to see my family, especially my niece, who is the crown jewel of our “dynasty”, to meet up with friends, have some laughs, some drinks, get hold on some books in Romanian and shop. I love Max Mara and they don´t have it in Norway any more! Can you even imagine?;-)

So I dined and wined, visited people and places, mostly the same places (and people!;-)), as my need for stability is ever so present, ate the eclairs and the pies my body had craved for an entire year, stayed in the same lovely hotel Cismigiu and explored. The city was sad and grey in the dirty February light, the temperature was nothing to fuss over, either, but the 1st of March brought a token of spring and people gave each other flowers and symbolic jewelry as they do every year. And it was lovely to see everybody, now I´ve recharged my batteries for a while. I´m sure I´ll go back to feeling home sick in no time!

Check out Amsterdamming´s entries on Bucharest!

Continue reading →

Tales of spring and hope

Although it´s still February, we´ve seen the sun a couple of times, it snowed  and the snow melted again, in a few words- I´m in the mood for spring. Thought I´d share with you a couple of pictures of our apartment and our life while waiting for spring. 🙂

IMG_5808

Continue reading →

Nutty cake

Friday crept into place and suddenly it was time for good food and treats. We had a couple of friends over and I made Indian, not the tandoori stuff you eat everywhere, but the more special dishes from North India with cauliflower, carrots, minced meat, peas and mint raita. Yum!

And since I have a sweet tooth, I feel a good meal is not complete unless it´s topped with a luscious desert. At the same time, I never have the time required by complicated cakes, nor do I believe them to be worth the effort.. So I searched on the good old internet and found the perfect recipe! You should make it an hour in advance so it can cool down in the freezer, but the making itself only takes 15 min!;-)

Ingredients

  • 250g assorted biscuits, roughly chopped
  • 250g assorted nuts, or a mix of nuts and dried fruit
  • 300g milk or plain chocolate, or a mixture of both, chopped
  • 100g butter, chopped
  • 140g golden syrup

  1. Butter and line a 20cm square tin with non-stick baking parchment. In a large bowl, combine the biscuits and nuts, halving any larger nuts. Melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth and glossy, then pour this over the biscuit and nut mixture.
  2. Tip the mixture into the tin, then flatten lightly – it doesn’t need to be completely smooth. Chill for at least 2 hrs or overnight before cutting into squares.

Source: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com

Rustic getaway in Daylesford

My strongest wish is to own a home where I can see myself living till the end of time, so that I can decorate it just as I please without thinking that I will need to sell it at one point. Interior designer´s Kali Cavanagh home is just one of these dreams! Vintage meets rustic meets industrial meets romantic! I mean, what else would you call a bath tub in the bedroom?! Love it!

Continue reading →

Living room lamp

I´m so excited, I can barely breathe! I finally found the perfect lamp for our living room! A limited edition Louis Poulsen PH lamp in copper! Ai ai ai! I´ve never seen anything this beautiful, I swear! But I should let you see for yourselves. I´ll place an order as soon as I manage to scrape together the 1200€ it costs!

Source: http://www.lyseideer.no

Slow motion

Although I have lots to do and an exam coming up, I think I´ll actually take a day off today. I feel a bit unwell and the last working weekends have taken their toll on me. I think I just need to lay on the couch all day and watch one of my favorite series, the Danish-Swedish coproduction- The bridge.

Yesterday was a glorious day with lots of sunshine and bird chirping, so spring seems a  couple of weeks away. I´m happy I´ll get to celebrate the 1st of March in Romania, it´s the day we mark the return of spring. Here are a couple of pictures of a beautiful spring celebration in Corfu, Greece, a couple of years ago. Have a lovely Tuesday!

Continue reading →