Christmas as usual...

Every -but every- year for as long as I can remember, I've spent Christmas at my grandparents' in Oradea.
The ritual is that on the 24th in the afternoon, Santa brings the tree and me and my cousins decorate it...afterwards, in the evening Santa comes, we light up the tree and sing Christmas carrols...

...my cousin, Mihai, who can play the piano, prepared a recital of carrols...

In the same house every year, we all gather and celebrate: these are my closest family members:

Me and mom...

...My dad and my cousin Mihai in the back...

...my aunt Mada with my cousins: Rala and Mihai...


...and the little guy...the smallest member of the family, Ionut...

...and their father Oreste...

...with Rala and my grandmother "Buni Mari"

...and my grandparents...who got engaged 45 years ago on Christmas eve...
MANY MORE!!! :)

...and finally, my dog Ami...raindeer for a night :)

After a heavy Christmas dinner...

...I left to meet my friends to go Christmas carrolling...we went to about 4 houses of our parents and we sang and ate and drank. On the street we said hello and Merry Christmas to all the passers by and Santa Sebi (in the picture, somewhere small among the girls) gave away candy to all the children we saw and not only.

Some of my friends work at a local station of a national television so they filmed our adventure and today we're supposed to be on the national news...:O

In the end we exchanged gifts and drove the neighbours crazy with Karaoke...

I was happy that this night managed to get me into the Christmas spirit...I had a lot of fun and I enjoyed giving and receiving presents with the people I care about...

Merry Christmas!!! to all of you reading this...no matter where you are...or if you celebrate Christmas...:)

Back home...

Being home with my friends and family is absolutely wonderful...detaching myself from the whole UK experience right now I feel is doing me sooo much good... It's so great to go from being on your own and fighting your own fight hardly anyone can understand...to being with people you grew up with, people who know you, who understand or can empathise with you so well...people who support you. I truely feel home right now and it's like I never left.

Being home, I surprised myself in saying and feeling things about UK I had no idea I was feeling...and this is catharctic to me...the purification I need in order to succeed and to start anew next year.

I forgot how true friendship feels like...and I forgot how incredibly and amazingly lucky I am to have the parents I have...and the family I have and all of my friends. And I wish I'll never forget that again for the rest of my life.

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..In the AIESEC office- the new one we fought so hard to get...with a whole new culture and with crazy newies...Up there are awards we've been geeting in the past two years...

...singing Christmas carols on the last LC meeting of the year...

...With Toci, Anca, Diana, Alis and Andreea in the mall...

...with Vlad, Alexandra, Bogga, Dan, Maria, Ursu and Cristi in former Grizzly- the dump that used to be our meeting place
...now they kicked us out at 23...what is this world coming to???

...same place with Vlad, Sandra and Alexandra...
these are all High School friends...some of whom I've shared so many special moments with...among which the theatre group...

...no comment...

...they just looked soo cute...

...and so did we...me and Cristi...

The rest of Portugal...

We had a relaxing time in Coimbra, before going to Porto on friday on a sort of teambuilding afternoon with the EB in Coimbra.


They made one of the wackiest roll calls I've seen that night...that they presented to the plenary at National Congress the next morning in Ofir. National Congress in Portugal is the conference where EBs are prepared for the last 6 months of their terms and the next MCP in Portugal is elected. It was strange and in the same time fun to be in such a conference again...I felt like in AIESEC again...and then again I felt like I didn't belong there anymore...a borderline kind of a feeling.

Saturday they had reception weekend for trainees in Portugal and joined them to go to Pavoa de Vazim. So that day I almost felt like a trainee too...and I made friends with them because they were special people...I met 3 polish girls and a polish guy, a greek girl, a romanian girl and some portugese SNs too that came to get to know us...



We had a cool time and I could empathise very well with what they felt...
...later on we stuck together at the official dinner where everyone was dressed up for Alumni hall of Fame and where an important partnership for Portugal was resigned...


All in all Portugal was a wonderful experience...yet again...very relaxing and fun...which was just what I needed after a looong year that has been 2006.

Lisboa...fantastic day :)

Before you start reading, play this song...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_PGAh7S5A8
and then start reading...just to get you in the atmosphere of my day...which was just...great. :)

My guide for the day...Francisco, the boyfriend of Antonio´s sister...was waiting patiently like a darling for me in the bus stop of Lisbon this morning, with THE Plan in his hand. These and these were the things we were going to see for the day.

So we took the subway and started the journey through Vasco da Gama mall that whispered to us `X-mas is coming you konw...´ and smiled...

...Out on the shore in between the strange creature´s feet...who did try to catch us, but we barely escaped...

...by the friendly artificial water volcano that said `hello Codru and welcome` from afar...

...and up to my very first Oceanario visit...`Nice to have you with us Codru`, the scuba man went and I knew then...that this will be a niiice fun relaxing day...

My favourite fish were the sun fish that looked like it swallowed a miniature couch and a sort of fish with a square forehead that flapped its wings about... But all the fish swam by proudly trying to display their best...

The sea planties were also excited to see us...they all crowded by the window in their colorful, best holiday clothes and shouted ´Oh look it´s Francisco and Codru...they came to visit...yupii!!!´


The only one we upset was the sandfish...who was the scrooge of the place...`Codru and Franciso came...Baahhh..humbug!!!` and he hid in the sand to throw up a bit...


`Oh...don´t be such a spoiled sport!` the coral bits shouted...`Codru´s here...don´t you know that if we behave and look pretty...we may even get to be on her blog...´


And so the penguins, that heard the corals, wanted to impress us and started to swim around in circles...just maybe they´d get the chance to be on the blog too...

...And so Codru was so impressed with all of them she wanted to take a picture with all her new friends to never forget how pretty they looked that day...

...and the planties were so pleased they wanted me to have this postcard in sign of their appreciation. ´We won´t forget you either, Codru!´

So I left smiling and floating above the city, towards Vasco da Gama bridge and tower.

After lunch...it was the turn of the Discovery monument to say hello. In the distance the pretty bridge and a Jesus statue just like in Brasil were blowing kisses...

The Belem Tower was also thrilled to see us...

...so he allowed us to take a picture with its private plane...

And poited us into the direction of neighbouring Marina Museum...

...which was so grateful we took its picture that it offered us some of the best pastry I tasted...Pasteis de Belem...nobody knows the secret of the receipe...

Finally it was the Commerce Square that said goodbye to us..until next time..The big Christmas tree was so upset we were to leave it refused to light up...:(

But the angels made up for it. They said...`We know Codru wanted her family to be here with her and she thought of her friends, most of all Anca and Tuca who have been here...so we´ll look pretty for all of them.`

Obrigado Lisboa...untill next time. Thank you and Francisco for a fantastic day...:)

Portugal...again :)

...only this time much colder...

We met in Porto again....:) which is where my plane landed...

...strolled around...because it was such a sunny and nice day...


And had lunch by the river, sitting in the sun like kittens and discussing big things...like the future :)

Every beggar we met had some interesting story to convince us that they deserved a euro...so Antonio, who was not used to them like us romanians... gave each of them a euro...

Clouds kept threatening to pour on us...but we got lucky...

So we could go up on a bridge to see this breathtaking view of the shore of the river...


...on which famous boats carry the Porto wine up and down the river from the vineyards in wooden barrels...



In the evening I attended the 22nd aniversary event of AIESEC in Coimbra. It was really strange for me because I had to just sit and not do anything...whereas at all the AIESEC Timisoara PR anniversary events I was the one running around, clicking the power-points and welcoming the guests.
This was really a dinner where they invited members, partners, alumni, families and trainees. The tables were assigned to the guests and you could sit down at the portugese, romanian, indian, brasilian or russian tables, because these were the nationalities of thier trainees. I was very lucky because I got to sit with Antonio at the `corporate` table with 4 partner representatives, VP ER and the MCP of Portugal- David. (who by the way sais hi Anca :) It´s amazing how small the world is...he came to Romania and was an Erasmus student, living in the same apartment with Ana´s Ivan and with Anto´s husband. He knows Timisoara so well and all the alumni and was an OC during the NPS in Buzias in 2002. Just amazing...:)
After dinner they had a power-point with pictures and speeches from the LCP, alumni and companies- sort of like we used to have :).
Finally, the day ended with us going to 2 pubs and going to bed really late...which is why today we slept in a lot and read and had a relaxing dinner.
Wednesday I´m looking forward to going to Lisbon, friday, Antonio and I are going to a team building day with the EB in Coimbra and saturday I´m attending the Portugese MCC, where the next MCP will be ellected in Porto. So stay tuned...:)