Ready? Last day in Warsaw.

We survived.

Woke up, booked a table in a restaurant, got into a cab.. and got a phonecall “Come here, we made lasagna!”. So the cab changed the course to Kris and Piotr’s place, where we had lasagna and hung out, before going for a small shopping spree where Avina got her hat. Kris dropped us off back at home, we visited the pool and spent the rest of the evening watching rental movies and enjoying the little luxuries and laziness that room service provides.

Well, at least until 10pm.

Because we did go out dancing, of course. Prosecco and snacks in Aïoli first where we realized that half of the group had been too tired to join us for another night of insanity, so we went for “Bubble Boom” shots with candyliqueur and sprinkles at Sketch by Night. The night was blue, pink and intense.

Next morning Piotr and Kris drove us to the airport. I seriously think they belong to the category of some of best people on earth. So much love! By 8pm, after a busride from the airport, we had arrived home in Stockholm. Avina, her hat, and I. Exhausted. Happy. Done.

Blood, shots and kisses. This is Warsaw by night.

On our second night in Warsaw we had the entire group with us. We first met for dinner in Der Elefant and did it the way it’s done in Warsaw – a lot of love, a lot of different clubs, and breakfast in Lemon, of course.

Somebody dropped a broken glass on my arm from the second floor in one of the clubs, so I got bandage on the cut and looked like Lara Croft (Oh, I wish!) for the rest of the night. Anyway, after Der Elefant, we went to a really nice bar that I don’t know the name of (guys, help!), then we visited a really nice club called Syreni Spiew, which is kind of like a house in a park with live music and a great athmosphere – and then we danced for a while in de lite, where the whole glass incident happened, and then we ended in Klubokawiarnia, which unfortunately has changed a lot since I used to go there. At least there were dancing poles so one of our friends had a lot of fun as she does pole dancing for sports – we were more than entertained. After finally having breakfast at Lemon in the morning hours, we got back to the hotel and took the elevator up to our room on the 30th floor. There, we found ourselves completely embedded in white – and that’s where we went to sleep. Among the clouds.

Warszawa – the first 24 hours

So we arrived in Warsaw by 9pm on Thursday night last week, and took the 5 minute walk from the Central Station to the hotel, where our friends Piotr and Kris were waiting for us. We checked in, opened the bottle of wine that welcomed us in the room, went for a swim in the hotel pool and went out dancing. The night ended in Lemon, the 24hour bar where all Warsaw nights tend to end and I was reminiscing the nights in 2006 when I used to go there with Bumbi, Sofie and other friends. The next morning we went out to meet Piotr and his colleagues for lunch (breakfast!) and wine, and then walked around Warszawa all day – looking at beautiful things, trying on wigs, drinking champagne, enjoying the wonderful weather, and riding the tramway. Just like any normal day in Warsaw. No, seriously – it was one of those memorable perfect days, where things are just smooth and easy. Warsaw is good at delivering that. Dziekuje!

Crec que puc

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Organizing papers and books, I found this. My relationship with Catalan was very brief, even though one of the first things I ever learned was t’estimo.. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting language and propably helped me out quite a bit when I a year later started learning Portuguese. Behold as the planets align! Haha

Inspiring Hula Hoop

Sometimes, I think that I should have chosen a more designy direction in life. Being able to create beauty such as in the video above would have been wonderful, as I really love shapes, surrealism and creativity. But then again, I love what I do, (whatever that is..) and I guess I just have to find enough spare time to be able to indulge in the arts, contrasts and details that other people create. And then there’s my photography thing, of course, and the option to include more design in whatever it is I am doing for a living. That’s very much an option, actually. Maybe.

Etereas – Short Film (2013)

# Director: Daniela Villanueva, Mara Soler
# Dancers: Brecken Rivara, Tiana Zoumer
# Production: César Moheno Plá
# Camera: Pamela Albarran
# Music: Julian Placencia / Teen Flirt
# Animation: Daniela Villanueva, Mara Soler, Alejandro Caballero, Marco Garfias, Fernando Sica, Luis Núñez

PEARL winnerfilm/ Pool-festival, Berlin. Top ten in Cinema Perpetuum Mobile Film Festival. Official selection: ANIMA 2013, Argentina, Baixada Animada Brazil, Cut Out Fest, Mexico, Female in Film Industry, Mexico.

Hunger is a Tyrant

Here’s a fantastic animation directed by Damian Nenow from Poland, marking the occasion of World Food Day on October 16th. The voice-over is by Dakota Fanning, and the video is part of a campaign by EndingHunger.org, an outreach and education project of the UN FAO.

Hunger kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. There are 842 million undernourished people in the world today, that’s almost one in eight people not getting enough food to lead a healthy and active life – or being able to reach their full potential as human beings.

I don’t work for the World Food Programme anymore, but I still consider proper nutrition being one of the most important questions in the world. The days during a woman’s pregnancy until the second birthday of a child have a profound impact on the development of the child – if the mother and her baby don’t receive adequate nutrition during this period, the effects are irreversible. In other words – this means this child will never be able to grow, learn and live properly. Always a little bit slower, a little less intelligent, a little more sick – and very likely to suffer from premature death.

Wroclaw in Pictures

After Berlin, Avina and I took a bus across the border to my grandmother’s city in Poland, Wroclaw. Wroclaw is an old German city that became Polish after the second world war and has a really beautiful old town. Being in Poland felt like home, my grandmother had cooked us things we both love, we chattered away in Polish, went for shopping, met a new friend, and Avina was delighted with the selection of sausages. And the best thing about it all was the fact that it was suddenly summer again.