architecture

Bergen

I was in Bergen on a short business trip and I thought I´d write a couple of posts about this town I love so much. An old Hanseatic harbor situated on the West coast of Norway, Bergen has got charm galore. The city center is contained by 7 mountains and preserves a small town atmosphere with wooden houses, narrow streets and lane ways, a meat market and a fish market, coffee shops and stores. It expands before your eyes as houses seem to be clinging to the mountain back. Nature is majestic and so is the architecture. And the people are so much more polite than the average Norwegian, you wouldn´t believe it!

Bergen was my adoptive home under a 3 months´trial in 2012 and I fell in love with it at once. Unfortunately, the weather is pretty bad due to the town´s geographical position- it´s raining cats and dogs and not only once in a while, either. And since I wasn´t in luck yesterday, I had to do my best with my camera and frozen feet and defeated the rain and my need to stay indoors by the fireplace.
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Postcards from Paris

We´re back on track and summer is officially over. We came home from 25 degrees in Paris to 5 in Oslo and I needed to dig out my sweaters. 😉 The time in France was so amazing I wanted to share a couple of pictures from my Instagram account, too. Hope you enjoy them!

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Paris

I´m in Paris and although there´s probably a special kind of sin not to be outside exploring, but inside writing on my blog, I needed to rest my feet at some point, so here we go! Besides, I just shared a bottle of Crémant with Vuong and our host, Tanguy and now I´m perking up with some coffee in bed. Taking into consideration all the amount of walking we´ve done these last 4 days, one would need to be Cat Woman not to need a short break. 😉

Oh, Paris, my heart is bursting out with love for this city! It´s my 7th time here, I think, but I never get enough of it! I usually like a city better the second or third time around anyhow, since I don´t feel the need to do all that sightseeing (that I seldom enjoy anyway). Luckily, we have a one museum per holiday policy, neither of us being especially keen on spending precious time indoors staring at the dead when we can admire the living. So this trip has been great so far. We had lots of time to walk about and admire the city´s heavily draped silhouettes, then sit down for a drink or a bite now and then. Whatever street we crossed, the smell from the corner fruit store would tickle our nostrils. We glared at Parisians, had a glimpse at art galleries, did some shopping- clothes, a scented candle or a brocante treasure. A cup of champagne was mandatory every day and so was something sweet to nibble on.

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Santorini

I couldn´t wait to share my travel adventures with you! I would have already done it from Santorini (although it might have come across as a bit pathetic!), but the internet connection was rather slow. 😉 First and foremost: Santorini is every bit as wonderful as the travel guides will have you believe! Its picture-perfect appearance greeted me every morning and I really couldn´t believe my luck of waking up to such a sight!

Our first day was very stressful since Vinsanto Villas, where we´d paid for our stay in advance, had double-booked and tried to pass a shitty hotel in the middle of nowhere as an upgrade. That made me so furious I was literally ready to jump on the guy´s face when he calmly told us there´d been a mix-up and besides the hotel was renovated, just not our room! haha! How funny is that?! In the end they moved us to Nomikos Villas in Firostefani (we were supposed to stay in Imerovigli) and covered the difference. The villas themselves had nothing wow over them, but our room was spacious and clean, we had a pool, a bar and air condition. And, best of all, we had our own private balcony with stunning views of the caldera!

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Trondheim

Once in a while I get to travel in my work and this time the trip went to Trondheim. Although I´d been here before, last time was a brief weekend visit two years ago and before that I was a student mainly concerned with shopping and partying, so I can´t say I´d seen the city properly before. This time Vuong came along to keep me company and check out shops to place his products in, so I was in luck! Otherwise I would have most probably eaten i my hotel room and spent most of my afternoon napping. 😉 Remember I´m a napper?

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Lisbon, my love

I haven´t been outside Europe yet , but I´ve seen quite a lot of the old continent. And although I knew that there will always be new places to discover and fall in love with, I was still taken aback by Lisbon. What a city! What a vibrant, colorful, charming city! It´s the architecture, the people, the food, the fado, the sweeping views, they all make Lisbon the place of one´s dreams! And let´s not forget the weather! For a Romanian living in Oslo and bitching about it 70% of the time, 5 days of glorious sun were just a soothing patch after a long and grey winter!

But let me tell you more about what you can do in Lisbon! Take the tram 28 and see the city sliding by! Walk from Estrela cemetery towards the city center, stopping by the Jardim da Estrela for the best beef sandwich you´ve ever had!

Shop in Principe Real area, it´s perfect for special shops! If you´re into the famous brands, Avenida da Liberdade can boast with both Max Mara and Louis Vuitton. And in the weekends, don´t miss the Thieves´Market, a charming antiques and rarities marked!

Dine at A Travessa, a wonderful restaurant located in an old cloister, incredibly romantic! The food is exquisite and so is the atmosphere! The waiters are attentive and speak flawless English. Next day, go to Pharmacia by Mirrador, a really cool concept restaurant located in an old mansion, with carefully prepared dishes served from apothecary vessels. For the next day, book tables at Adega Machado in Bairro Alto, a bit in the pricy range, but absolutely worth it for the divine music! Order duck with risotto and the cinnamon ice-cream!

If you´ve seen it all and still have some time on your hands, go to Cascais for a day and stay at the beach sipping caipirinhas! Sintra is a must I hear, but it´ll have to wait for next time. ´Cause I need to book tickets for Lisbon soon!

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Easter 2014

Thursday was all about baking and hiding inside from the rain. I made all this food and we cuddled up with blankets and Netflix.  A lovely way to start a mini holiday, but would have proved boring in the long run. Yesterday however, the sun was shining and it was time for new adventures. I waited for my husband to finish a wallet he´s had an order on and when it seemed it was never going to happen, I took Sam for a walk to hip Grunnerløkka. We took some pictures on our way crossing Grønland and Tøyen, strolled through the lovely Botanical Garden and smelled the flowers. Luckily, my friend Elif agreed to meet us there, so we had coffee and pizza at Villa Paradiso. My man joined us in the end and we walked happily into the sunset the three of us. Haha!

Today we´re going to the Østensjø lake into the woods. Pictures soon! Enjoy the ride with us!

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Sunny day

What a lovely day! And what better to do with it than go for a stroll with Anette and our dogs? We´re lucky to have many cosy areas around and Kampen is one of them. A former working class neighborhood, its vivid colors are refreshing and its wooden houses- quaint.  Almost free for traffic and boasting with a couple of real time charm coffee shops, it´s the place to go if the sun is shining and you have a couple of hours on your hands. Just have a look for yourselves!

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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.

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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!

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