Sinaia reloaded: Vertigo and the lost Milka

I know that it took me too long to post new photos and that September in general has been a bit lazy, but the last days I was working heavily on creating two videos about the events in Domeniul Greaca (see previous posts).

The second day in Sinaia we decided to go high on the mountain and take the telegondola to take us even higher and see the world from 1400 meters. The telegondola (or teleferic) is that little box which travels upwards or downwards on a line. It's like those creepy chairs that the skiers use to go to the top, only that it's closed and it feels safer. Although still scary! But it was a huge relief to find it and finally sit after all this walking upwards. From around 500 meters that is the altitude of Sinaia, we walked to 1000 meters, following the road which is made for the cars. Long story short, it was quite tiring.

So, this is the line, this is the little pink box and I admit that it feels a bit creepy at first. Until you get down. Then you feel great again.

Of course, if you want to go back down, the fastest way is the little pink box again. By the way, do you see the tiny houses? That is Sinaia. We walked from there until the beginning of the line. Upwards. I assure you, it's a lot. And we are in bad shape. This counts too.

After we returned down and while we were waiting for the mini bus to return to town, I saw this. They have various tools for bicycles there and apparently many bikers use the telegondolas to go to 1400 meters and explore the mountain with their bikes.

But my inexcusable eyes, slaves to my stomach which has most of my brain cells, fell on these delicious 535 calories. Someone had left them there. To tempt me? To confuse me? To tease me? Maybe they just forgot it there. Anyway, I did my duty. Click on it, so that you can see it better. Go ahead, click on the photo of the purple beauty. You will see it bigger. Probably you will feel the need to go and buy one. It will be my fault. I have no regrets for that.

So, we took the mini bus. But we went to the Peleș museum. It was a house of Nicolae Ceaușescu who, as every dictator who respects (only) himself, thought that it was fair for him to have many nice things but the rest of the people not.

Of course, like many dictators, he didn't have a very nice end. Even though I was very little in 1989 when the revolution took place and the dictator with his wife were executed via a firing squad in live broadcast, I still remember intensely the feelings of these days.

Now Peleș is a museum and there were many visitors, even from the USA. The old days are a bad memory (shown in black and white) and the sky around the place is blue.

A little trip to Sinaia

Today we took the train and after about 120 km, we arrived at Sinaia, on the mountains of Romania. It's a beautiful small touristic town and, even it it's quite colder than Bucharest, it's still very nice. Let's see what the first day had to offer us.

Mountains everywhere, yes. An interesting view of the boulevard Carol I.

As usual, editing helps the photo look even better.

This looks more like something from a temple, but I think it is a house. In any case, I wanted to take a photo of it!

Look at this. Very nice image. Lots of green everywhere. And interesting houses, built with their roofs inclining in order to not keep lots of snow, I think. It snows a lot around here and a flat roof could be damaged under the weight of too much snow.

Nice landscapes, but this is my favourite photo for today. These four siblings were receiving the travellers outside the train station, on the stairs that lead to the boulevard Carol I. So squeezable that it hurts! Look at these faces!

Look how they are posing! I give you my word, I didn't touch them! They sat like this by themselves! I wanted to stay there and play with them for the rest of the day!

You know how there are dog persons and cat persons, based on which animal they like more? I think I'm both. But for today, with those faces, I am a dog person!

In the countryside in Romania

These days we are in Greaca, around 65km far from Bucharest, Romania, for a UNESCO action. I've had the chance to take a few hundred photos and I'm glad to present you three of them here, tonight (it's almost midnight in Romania at the time I started writing this).

Impressive colours, even with absolutely no editing. Many photos on the hill of the hotel Domeniul Greaca where we are guests, have this kind of beauty, thanks to the sun's contribution.

And this is what happens after a bit of editing. My little struggling netbook did very well and didn't get stuck in the process! Go ahead, click on the photo to see the slideshow. Come on, do I have to remind you every time?

I did pat myself on the back for this one. "Nice job, dude", I told me before stretching a bit, because patting yourself on the back is a bit hard. It needs flexibility.

What happened here? Just some editing happened. Editing takes a great photo and makes it even better. Check the intensity of the colours. I like this one very much, in case it wasn't undestood.

This is at the entrance of Lumina university, in Bucharest. These tiny boxes with the balconies that are closed and have become another room, are something very common in Bucharest.

Say what you want, but I prefer to live in these boxes in the city than in the countryside.

And now, for something different!

It's here. It arrived in the morning. The Canon 650D. The dream, the little monster, the super tool. Of course, since it's important for things not to go very correctly, the seller forgot to put in the pack the 18-55mm lens and until I receive it, I will only have the 55-200mm to play with. It's OK. I already started experimenting and there's still a lot to be done.

Of course, in order to be able to buy the camera, we got a bit out of budget, so, you know what you can do! Let's go to three of the pictures I took today!

First, one from the balcony. Focusing on the top of the tree whose leaves fall off when the weather gets fucked. That is, when it's not summer.

And since I cannot go without editing, here is the same pictures, with more saturated colours.

Later we went for a walk. And we saw these window cleaners while they were, well, cleaning some windows. La Tour Montparnasse Infernale came to mind and if you haven't watched it, do yourselves a favour and watch it.

Here's the same photo with a bit more blue. The guys were on the 30th floor or something like that.

Oh, I couldn't just let this one go without  taking a photo. There were at least three of these insects that look like bees on steroids, with all the extra volume and the hair and maybe the zits and the shrunk genitals.

More colours, please! Thank you!

So, yeah. The next photos will be taken with the 650D. Hopefully it will get better now.

In the city of science

In a not very good area on the 19th, Métro line 7 - Porte de la Villette, lies the enormous building of the Cité de Sciences et de l'Industrie. It is what its name says. In several floors, the visitor can see and interact in various ways with the big variety of educational games over various fields of science or watch some informational videos (I raised my portfolio by 45% on a stock market exchange simulator). The Planetarium is a great experience, where you can watch on a 360º screen Le Navigateur Du Ciel (The Navigator Of The Sky), a movie about the Earth and the galaxies, made with a very interesting technique. Extremely recommended.

The pictures I took were no big deal. Still, a bit more patience and this is about to change.

The entrance.

The entrance, edited.

There is a helicopter inside. I don't know if it can actually fly in there, even if there is quite some space.

Many interesting things to see. You must enter early in the morning if you want to see as much as possible.

Going out, to the metro or tram station. To the left, a 3-star hotel. To the right, little boxes. There are more and they are even sadder.

The editing may not have much contrast, but the picture itself, with the two buildings within spitting distance, has lots of it. Of contrast, that is.

At Saint-Georges area

Circumstances brought me at the Saint-Georges area today, where I had the chance to take a few photos. I'm glad to present three of them to you right now.

The church of Sainte Trinité. As usual, a huge building with too much decoration, too complicated for its supposed purpose which is to bring people closer to their god.

Are all these extras necessary? By the way, the sky looks much better here!

At the same time, on the other side of the street, the residences for humans look like little boxes. Although they have this nice classic architecture, there's a difference between the church and the houses, isn't there?

It's a good thing that these pictures I'm posting aren't overexposed. This way I can have the houses and the sky.

"One French out of four has immigrant origins." How can you not love such messages? Especially now, that the stupidity rate in Europe seems to go upwards.

The edited version has nicer colours, I think. And the "one out of four" thing, in other areas of Europe is even more.

Am I improving in editing? I'd like to read an opinion, here or in the Facebook page. This is the 40th post and there are more to come! Thanks for reading!

Love the differences! (Torino intermission)

Last year, in August, we were in Torino, Italy, for a week. It was a very nice experience in total. What I regret is that I only had my video camera with me and I took mostly some video clips. The pictures were taken with this camera, which I used in a few of my movies, and it's on 5MP. Yet, i managed to have some interesting shots. Like these:

This is part of the view from the top of the Cinema Museum. Definitely worth the visit.

There is a glass elevator that takes you to the top and you see everything on your way up. Not very comfortable!

Here's something that I loved. The old watch shed, as it says in Italian above the silver car.

On it, written in various languages, "LOVE DIFFERENCE". Written in English, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Greek and a few more that I couldn't see. It's quite simple, really. Love the fucking differences, because they make us better.

Torino is beautiful. At least in summer. But in summer, almost all places are beautiful. Love the differences!

Something from the previous days

So, today I have two photos that I took the days before but they didn't make it to the posts. Also, they are too nice to be left out completely, so here they are. The first one is from line 6. Behind the protective bars and the trees, there is a building that looks old. Its style is met in many buildings throughout Paris and, even if I love modern stuff, in architecture I have a thing for oldies. I admired them in Amsterdam and Torino as well.

The main differences are on the design of the roof and on the banisters of the balconies.

Is the editing making the details clearer? I don't think so, but the photo looks nicer this way.

Back to the area of La Défense, next to the thumb. To the left, we can see the entrance for Cnit, one of the commercial centers of the area. Far away, at the top right corner of the photo, is the grande arc of La Défense. And, in the center, the main subject of the photo. The flowers. When I get my hands to that 650D, I will take so many photos of flowers that the blog will look like a hippy blog from the 60's. I mean, if such a thing existed, anyway.

And here are the flowers with their colours a bit more intensified. I'm happy with this picture.