Polychromatic Autumn

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My autumn was anything but monochromatic: it was full of trips of many colours … and short sizes (mostly combined with work).

I tasted a 4,5 euros (!) cappuccino at Thessalonica’s boulevard … of course I stayed there for as much time as possibly staring at the sun with my Silhouette sun glasses getting a return of my money in vitamin D stocks, while drinking the water that accompanied it. Talking about glasses: what do the Danish Queen Margrethe and Elton John have in common? They both wear Lindberg glasses!

I visited Oxford, including Christ Church College, but remind me of dear Cambridge instead of Harry Potter (don’t say it out loud - after all you are only supposed to mention the 2 cities together when talking about Varsity competitions and alike) I also went to Evita’s Dutch popularised musical (I bought the tickets long time ago ignoring the whole ‘Looking for Evita’ television program parade) but where I really had fun was in London at the ‘We will rock you’ musical singing along the Queen’s songs. A must-see in the capital of musicals!

I visited a Xmas market - no, not in Germany, not in the Nordic church in Rotterdam, of course Portobello does not count because that’s the Queen of all markets - mais 'a Paris ! I knew you wouldn’t guess, the city of lights is often associated with other natures such as l’amour, bon manger, les arts … (check the Marmottan museum with its unique Monet collection). I bought there a wooden ring with a very cute arabesque, which turned out to be the equivalent of the om-mmmmmmmmmmmmm meditation sound (sorry yogis and yoginis, for my early ignorance)

The Eastern coloured trip was to Beijing, China! Besides hard-working the trip included:

a cup of tea at Lao She Teahouse while watching magnificent Sichuan Chinese Opera featuring face-changing + martial arts + etc.; a rickshaw trip to the old city (a graciosity!) including the visit to a courtyard-house of a local who looked like Jacky Chan; a siesta in a taxi while being stuck in the traffic for 1,5 hours; a walk on the Chinese wall; an almost ran over by a bus, when the car where we were in made a sudden turn to the right (sorry morbid fans: didn’t see my life passing in front of my eyes, just a giant zooming-in of the bus, believing a stop was impossible - fortunately it wasn’t and stayed 2 inches away); visits to markets, shopping malls and to silk and jade workshops; watching someone been ran over by a car on the same spot where our taxi-driver wanted to drop us, just a minute before - fortunately my negotiation skills had worked ‘No stop here, no, no!); eating hotpot; a visit to the site of the future Olympic games (by the way, ‘the Bird’s Nest’ gets uglier as you get closer but the floating Opera House is simply a world wonder!); visits to mystic temples; and experiencing the grandiose hospitality and friendliness of the Chinese people - thank you my dear Friends!

Enjoy the Xmas break and I wish you a Fab 2008!
I am starting mine at a monochromatic ‘Black and White’ New Year’s party! ;-)
Marisa

P.S. After all these coloured trips I was very disappointed that some airlines do not allow donating the air miles to a Carbon-neutral program (just to give me a little bit of peace of mind …) - and I am wondering when is my employer going to think of that too!

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