THANK YOU

 This morning I woke up and was asked to wait before coming down. See here why:

Wolfram got me flowers and nicely put the birthday cards I received under (this also explains why yesterday night I was forbidden to enter the study).

A BIG THANK YOU to my parents, sister, brother, aunt, cousins, friends, colleagues who called / texted / emailed / sent a message on Facebook or a (e)card.

It's great to hear from you all!

PS: did I mention I receive a voucher for massage... can't wait to go have one

We don't want fish dry food!

2 months ago I bought dry food flavour chicken. Both cats loved it and we had to give strictly the recommended dose to make sure they would not grow fat. This lead to "starving" cats as the food would be gone in less than 5 minutes.

Last month, to change, I bought dry food flavour lamb. Mokka clearly loved it and food would disappear in less time than it takes to say it. Muffin on the other hand was not a big fan. Eventually he would eat... because one has to eat.

Friday, new month, new flavour: fish! This morning when I gave it to them for the first time the reaction was not what I had expected. I thought "cats love fish". Reaction from Muffin was eating but no passion there. Mokka simply refused to eat it. Stubborn we left the food because they will get hungry and that's the only food available.

This afternoon they rebelled against the fish flavoured food and turned around their bowls spreading the food on the floor. Unbelievable.

Now another power fight is starting in the house: the cats vs. us, once again. We have 3kg of dried food flavour fish and I can tell you we won't buy any other until it's all eaten!

Brushing the cat

Today, in an attempt to reduce the number of cat hair flying around in the house, I grabbed a brush and decided to brush Muffin and Mokka. The first lucky cat was Muffin who happened to be nicely resting on the terrace. Quietly, slowly, I approached him and started to brush. At first he was not very sure what I was trying to do and was a bit surprised.

But quickly, he started to enjoy the brushing and you could hear him purring from far away. He enjoyed it so much he was following me asking for me whenever I would stop. It even became an opportunity to play.

One should not forget the final touch.

I am very proud of me as I do find that his fur is softer to touch and also shinier :)

Measurable success (yes, in 15 minutes of brushing you can remove that much hair from a cat). Note that Muffin also enjoyed the "hard" side of the brush. Seems he likes it rough :)

Now key challenge is to convince Mokka to do the same. First attempts with her were not as successful as with Muffin. She doesn't seem to like it very much. But let's see what we can do.

It's good to be back home

I missed you too!

Independence square

Last chance for a bit of sight seeing tonight, I walked to the Independence Square. It's apparently the central square of Kiev and the place was packed with people. And not only tourists. People living around would just grab a drink or a book and sit there enjoying some leisure time. So I did the same for a little while.

What's even more interesting is the underground shopping center, just under your feet :) It's a pity I didn't have time to explore those 2 underground levels. Next time I guess.

Saint Sophia's Cathedral

Just across Saint Michael's cathedral is Saint Sophia's cathedral. How convenient, isn't it?

We walked the 500m between the 2 and before entering the 2nd monastery we were surrounded by some "biomen". 4 men dressed in colored outfit were walking the square and playing with the people passing by. They quickly spotted Michele and started to revere her. It was funny for 1 minute and after she struggled to get rid of them. They might have been dressed colorfully but couldn't speak a word of English. The monastery turned out to be our refuge.

Same feeling as in the first one, peaceful atmosphere.

Not as beautiful as the Saint Michael's one, Saint Sophia's cathedral is still quite impressive even if more simple in the style. We got lucky as the sun was shining just on top of it refecting in the golden domes.

Saint Michael's Cathedral

Once at the top of the hill we discovered Saint Michael's Cathedral, one of the jewels from Kiev.

WOW

Blue wall with golden domes. What can I say, perfect combination.

Cathedral was originally built in 1108 but was destroyed by the Soviet regime in 1930s for having "no historical value" (obviously this is debatable). With this destruction not only was the building gone, but also all the paintings, mosaics and icons inside. What a pity.

Reconstruction was completed in 2000.

Unfortunately no picture was allowed inside but to be fair it would have been hard given the absence of light inside. Only candle light so you can pray in peace (and not pay a close look to all the copies - paintings, mosaics, icons- that have been placed to replace the destroyed one). So, be in peace while looking at the few shots I managed to take from the outside.

Funicular

Having finished our interviews and still some daylight left we decided to take one hour for sightseeing. To avoid traffic the people from the agency dropped us at the funicular at the bottom of the hill, on top of which we would find the 2 famous cathedrals of Kiev.
Originally built in 1905, the funicular has been transporting people since then up and down the hill. Interestingly its original cost was covered by the Belgian owner of Kiev trams. It's indeed a small world.

It is literally a jump back in time to take this funicular. It's been renovated since 1905 but I can tell you that the tram we took was for sure the original one from 1958. Once again Soviets built things to last.

Deja-vu

First day in Kiev and we spent it going around in a tiny mini car which suspensions must have been lost a while ago and a driver thinking he is competing in the Monaco Grand Prix.
Not much time for pictures but an overall impression of Deja-vu. Kiev is a strange mix of Soviet blocks like in Moscow

but with  historical center reminding me of Budapest. A strange mix you could argue but what can I say that's the best way I have to describe what I've seen today.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

New country, new airline

Despite being still half sick I took off tonight for Kiev. My very first time in Ukraine! I couldn't miss it. I packed a full pharmacy with me and hope the the nice and warm weather in Kiev will do the rest.

After a first flight to Vienna Michele and I took another one to Kiev on Ukraine International Airline. The contrast was big between the head to toes red from Austrian Airlines (seriously, red pantyhose?!!)to the flashy blue and yellow from the Ukrainian airlines.

We arrive in the middle of the night (1am local time) so didn't get the chance to see much on the road from the airport. Let's see what tomorrow brings!

Tip for the future

Today was Ionna and Jeroen's wedding. At least the administrative part as the religious one will be in Romania in a couple of weeks.
Dressed up we arrived at the town hall at 11:45, 15min before it was supposed to start. And we were alone. No one around. We even called Jeroen to confirm it was the right location. They were still at home. A few other guest arrived in the next 15min, but not the heroes of the day nor their families.
At noon the lady in charge at the town hall commented "they are late. I've never seen this. Normally couples arrive 15-10min before to make sure they don't miss their ceremony". We tried to say they must be on their way as an apology but clearly she was not happy. Rightly so, at 12:30, the next ceremony was to start.
The whole group arrived at 12:10 and we were all rushed into the room. Ceremony started and was completed in 15min after which we received a glass of champagne or orange juice and were asked to go drink it in the meeting room next door. The next couple was already behind the door.
Before the party at 6pm we went back home for lunch and nap. I really needed some sleep being still in recovery.
After 3 good hours of sleep we arrived at their place. We discovered the newly renovated kitchen / dinning / sitting room which looks now amazing and joined the other guest in the tent in the garden. They had set up a huge tent with a catering team at our service to treat us. Food was ok, especially the starters. Main course was a standard BBQ. I never tried the desert as I asked Wolfram to take me back home before that.
Unfortunately despite it was June 19th, 2 days before the official start of summer, weather was not good. The whole day rain and sun alternated and at night it was barely 11-12 degrees. Really cold for June. Despite the different heaters the temperature inside the tent kept dropping and I felt getting sick again. So once I ran out of tissues I left, back to bed :(
Tip of the day: if you ever plan a wedding in Belgium. go for indoor, because you never know whether it will be summer or winter, even in June.

Happy Birthday to my little brother!!!!

It's over

After 1 month of preparation, 2 weeks of intensive work, incredible number of long days, we had our 2 days of reviews Wednesday and Thursday. The marathon is over :)
I can now resume with life out of the office starting with sleep and heal the sore throat I've had to endure for the past couple of days.
I dream of a Chinese full body massage and watching TV lying down on the sofa with my brain on off.

Preparing vacation

Today Alice came over for lunch. Stomach full we spent the whole afternoon planning our vacation in Malaysia. I'm sooooo looking forward to them. Planning and booking of hotels / flights is already exciting.
Only 4 weeks to go until we take off!!!!!

Sex in the City - The movie 2

Gosh it was bad. I am a huge fan of Sex in the City, but I have to say that this movie not far away from what they could have done. First movie was pretty good, in the spirit of the series. Movie #2 however is taking our 4 girls (well women now) away from New York all the way to Abu Dhabi. It could have been fun and interesting but it turned out boring, with cheap jokes and plenty of ore-conceived ideas (I guess that's how the Middle East look like through the eyes of some Americans).
In a nutshell a disappointment :(

PS: of course given the duration of the movie (2h20 something) the movie theater had an intermission right in the middle of it. In the 2nd half the screen went black but the sound kept on. Something must have gone wrong with the file. It re-started but we had missed 5 minutes. So they had to "rewind" it back to where it had stopped. Making the movie even longer. Faithful to myself, I went complaining afterwards and got us 2 free tickets. Let's hope the next movie will be better.

It's one of those days

Where no matter how hard you try you feel tired. I guess my body is requesting the rest it missed during past week. Without the adrenaline push my body simply refuses to push forward.
Dear body enjoy your 48 hours of rest because comes Monday we're back on for 2 super busy weeks :)

They tried hard

Last night we watched the football game between France and Uruguay. Somehow it's always stressful for me to watch the French team. They are capable of the best or the worse and there is no way to predict which one it will be. Still last night they tried hard to score. They had many opportunities but sadly never managed to break the defense wall from Uruguay. Let's hope they will do better in the next game.

A different activity for the evening

A few months ago we bought tickets for a show without really knowing what it was about. It was a leap of luck, trying to experience something different: Marianne Faithfull reads Shakespeare's Love Sonnets.
We arrived late due to impossible parking situation in the center but still made it just before she started.
The set up was 2 people on the stage:
- Marianne Faithfull, sitting at a table and reading the sonnets
- Vincent Segal, sitting next to her playing the cello in between each sonnet
I have to confess I preferred the music over the sonnets. Possibly because Shakespeare's English is not that easy to understand (even with translation).
I was a bit surprised that the show only lasted 1 hour but at the same time longer might have become boring. There is only so much time one can listen to poetry, I guess.
Not the best show ever but surely a nice and different way to spend the evening, away from Internet and DVDs.
You can have a glimpse of the show here (bottom of the page).
This said we had no idea who Marianne Faithfull was / is (just not our generation). Obviously there were some fans in the room who stood up at the end of the show. I guess it reminded the (old) lady of her success when from the 60s and 70s (we won't talk about her scandals :)).

Steam station

About 2 weeks ago Anamaria, our cleaning lady, asked me whether we were considering changing the iron. Surprised, I asked whether it was a) broken, b) not working properly or c) simply something was wrong with it. None of the above. Then what?

My iron is too old and not powerful enough :( An iron equipped with a steam generator would be much better and allow to iron much faster (i.e. more clothes ironed by her, even less by us). Quid ????

True I can't remember when I bought my iron. For sure at some point in Paris which means easily 8 years ago, if not 10. Fair to say it's old.

True with the 2 of us in the house there is more to iron than when it was just me.
True new irons are more powerful than mine and I can bet one with the steam generator would be.
True also I always wanted to have one when I was ironing but never had the money to buy one (later I had Anamaria ironing for me... so I never thought of it again).
So I searched the Internet to learn about those steam stations and nearly had a heart attack when I saw that prices ranged from 100 euros or so all the way up to 400!!!!

In the meantime I discovered most of my colleagues have one (seems it's a must when you have children) and even those who don't have children bought one eventually because it's simply faster.

Conclusion of the investigation: we bought one...

It's huge compare to the simple iron I had before and after a test drive this evening I can say the following: WOW! It's so much easier to iron now. One slide and it's done or almost. One negative though: the noise when the machine is heating the water which makes it harder to hear the movie.

If I didn't hate so much ironing in the first place I would almost say I enjoyed ironing. I never thought I would say that one day.

Beautiful Flowers

The house is full of flowers and I love it!

Thanks Silke, Alex and Fabian (2 weeks after your visit the orchids are still beautiful)

Thanks Wolfram for the surprise  bouquet.

Thanks Manuela, Luis and Adrian for lovely flowers and great brunch.

Life is tough

when you are a cat sleeping 18 hours a day...

3000

Today while buying a gift for baby Lily, I decided to treat myself with a new puzzle.
3000 pieces that's the size of the challenge I'm about to start. That's the biggest puzzle I ever did (well this is assuming I will manage to finish it).
Let's get started (and forget eating at the table for some time).

The Paper Towel Gang feat. Bounty's Pool Balls Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sk2zBEjfX8
Check this out !
Of course the whole team wants us to do the same for our project. It's gonna be fun :)