Vic's Worth Mentioning

Let's do it, Romania!

2010-04-09T00:49:00.004+03:00

No Comment ... Let's Do It!

Csxereda!

2010-03-26T02:06:00.005+02:00

We are the Champions! Again ;-)

more photos here: "jocul de-a fotografia"

... all we really want is to be close to somebody ...

2010-03-12T02:52:00.000+02:00

"At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, all we really want is to be close to somebody. So this thing where we all keep our distance and pretend not to care about each other, it's usually a load of bull. So we pick and choose who we want to remain close to, and once we've chosen those people, we tend to stick close by. No matter how much we hurt them. The people that are still with you at the end of the day, those are the ones worth keeping. And sure, sometimes close can be too close. But sometimes, that invasion of personal space, it can be exactly what you need."

Grey's Anatomy > Meredith

Valasz ... (18+)

2010-03-05T02:22:00.009+02:00

(this is a special dedication, I apologize but i'll not translate it, it has explicit content and the person for whom it's dedicated will understand it anyways)

... neha osszegyul a megvalaszolatlan dolog amire a Belga tudja a legjobb valaszt ... csak az vegye magara akinek szol ;-)

Cluj - Bucharest - Cluj

2010-03-02T23:36:00.003+02:00

Our guest star is

OK-SWU

It's a Czech plane from SmartWings operated by BlueAir with I guess mostly Czech crew.

One suggestion to BlueAir management:

If you have them anyway, let the Czechs speak English until your people learn it :-)!

Yet another boring flight... as all should be

Over the Carpathians

2010-03-02T09:41:00.000+02:00

Airport security

2010-03-02T06:00:00.002+02:00

Busted. I had my wine opener in my notebook bag. Confiscated :-(!

The guy behind me asked if he is allowed to go on the plane with a lighter. Of course :-).

Feels like discrimination. He goes with Tarom, I'll go with BlueAir so I'm safe.

Gooood Mooorning sleepy people ;-)!

...life is this game of inches...

2010-02-24T00:56:00.001+02:00

Budapest-Sofia

2010-02-09T03:41:00.002+02:00

With Malev was boring as all the flights should be. Compared with Tarom, Malev's services are poorer but on direct flight no emotions

HA-LOG Budapest-Sofia 06.02.2010 13:10

HA-LOJ Sofia-Budapest 08.02.2010 15:10

I'm Out Of Office :-)!!!!!!

2010-02-05T22:17:00.004+02:00

... see you in Budapest, Sofia, Blagoevgrad, Budapest and on the ski slopes near Maribor!

Road plan for next week

2010-02-03T00:53:00.005+02:00

this is the plan (Budapest-Sofia-Budapest is by plane)

View Ski Trip in a larger map

Sofia

2010-01-28T02:02:00.008+02:00

София if you're already there.

My first contact with the city was the airport, Terminal 2 which is a new terminal having all the services I need when I arrive to a foreign country (cabs and cash machine).

The next place to see was the bus station when I arrived here the second time on my way back from Blagoevgrad.

This week-end we decided to see Sherlock Holmes so we went to Sofia to Cinema City in Mall of Sofia.

After the movie we met Cicuska's friends for a coffee. They offered to take us to the bus station but for my surprise we (I guess mostly me) got a quick free tour of the center of Sofia.

This is how I saw the Statue of St. Sofia, The former royal palace, now the National Art Gallery, National Palace of Culture, National Assembly of Bulgaria, The St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Nikolay's church (the Russian Church), the Banya Bashi Mosque, Vitosha Boulevard, nice buildings used as embassy now, Sofia University, the Vasil Levski Boulevard and ... (it was fast so that's what I remember now)

You get no pictures because I did not have a camera with me.

I hope in a warmer period of the year I'll have the opportunity to walk around the city and provide you more information and photos also, until then you just have to google ...

Thank you Nikolay for this tour, it was done professionally ;-) ... maybe I'll be able to return the favor so let me know when you plan to visit Cluj!

PS. just for comparison a tour of Milano costs 20 EURs, if you do not have too much time for visiting and if you're as lucky as we were this summer, you get a summer storm included with the semi-open bus

Благоевград ...

2010-01-27T00:43:00.012+02:00

... which is Blagoevgrad ... I'm just showing off :-) ...

She lives here. It is the best reason for me to go there.
Since I was there last week-end let me tell you a few things I learned about the city and if/when I'll visit it again maybe I'll update you on it. The rest is on wikipedia, I'll try not to repeat the information which is already there.

One important thing to know about the city is that in some tourist guides it is called the Cambridge of Bulgaria. Mostly because of the American University in Bulgaria which is located here.

If you're a student in the city or you're just visiting and you like to dance, the Te Amo Latino club for social latino dances (you need a facebook account to access this link) is the best place for entertainment. Here you can learn how to dance meet new friends and if you already know the moves you can exercise them at the parties organized here regularly.

The best food in the city is cooked by Cicuska (I might be a bit subjective on this ;-) ).

To go out Bar 82 is one of the few places I tried but comparing it with the other places in the world where I ate (there were a few), you will definitely be satisfied by the atmosphere of the place and the good food and drinks served here. They also have free wireless.

The city is surrounded by impressive mountains, on a clear day you can enjoy an awesome landscape.

Bansko one of the ski resorts of Bulgaria and Rila Monastery
are two places to visit if you're in Blagoevgrad. If i get there you'll know ;-)

The easiest way to get to Blagoevgrad from Romania is through Sofia. Once you're there ask a cab driver to take you to Centralna Avtogara. From here you can take one of the buses that goes to Blagoevgrad. Check their webpage for the schedule. The trip costs only 10 Levas, ~5 EURs, ~20RONs.

PS. For those of you who are watching too much TV or the news from 17:00 ... there is no big difference between Romania and Bulgaria ... the most significant is the language and the writing ... these are the only challenges for me, but this is nothing that you can not solve using your hands ;-)

Airplanes

2010-01-25T23:45:00.005+02:00

For those who are interested in airplanes, the planes of these week-end were:

CLJ-OTP 22.01.2010 6:45 and OTP-CLJ 25.01.2010 21:25

YR-ASB Traian Vuia

OTP - SOF 22.01.2010 9:20 (1 hour delay from another flight it made that day)

YR-ATG Dambovita

SOF -OTP 25.01.2010 18:50

YR-ATD Mures

For those who got here wondering what's with the names ...

It seems that Tarom gives the name of people who did something for aviation for its Airbus 318 fleet. The Airbus A310-300 planes have the name of the main Regions of Romania.

The ATR fleet gets the name of the main rivers from Romania while the Boeings get the name of big cities from Romania.

Sofia with Tarom [part 3]

2010-01-22T10:26:00.000+02:00

We landed in Sofia :-)))! With one hour delay!

Let's hit the road to the Avtogara and catch the bus for the real
Dream Lunch ... and more ;-)

Sent from my iPhone

Sofia with Tarom [part 2]

2010-01-22T08:42:00.000+02:00

So far so good and sometimes you can be honestly happy if your plane
is delayed.

I managed to check-in for the flight to Sofia altough the check-in was
already closed. I just had to jump over the crowd waiting for the
check-in for Madrid and be a bit rude with the guys from check-in
after they told me the check-in is closed.

Now at 8:40 I'm in the bus. The flight was scheduled for 8:20 ...
let's see how long will it take...

Sent from my iPhone

Sofia with Tarom [part1]

2010-01-22T06:05:00.002+02:00

Good Morning!

I made it! I mean the first step.

I woke up and I checked in, now I'm waiting for boarding in Cluj.

Tarom likes adventures, if they are for me. The lady from the check-in
told me very relaxed that she can not give me the boarding pass to
Sofia, I'll have to take it from the check-in in Bucharest. The system
changed... faith :-)

In ideal conditions (that never seem to happen), I have 45 minutes
from landing to go to the international terminal, check-in pass
security and passport check and get to boarding ... last time we
(Tarom who had 40 minutes delay on a 50 minutes flight without fog and
snow and me) didn't made it... and there was no double check-in. This
meant 8 hours in Otopeni with a "dream" lunch payed by Tarom, at least
I was lucky that I had company.

Today I want to have lunch in Blagoevgrad with Cicuska soooo keep your
fingers crossed.

To be continued ...

PS The new terminal of Cluj Airport has free wireless. Isn't this
awseome :-)? (why would Otopeni have something like this?)

Sent from my iPhone
>

TGIF!

2010-01-15T20:53:00.002+02:00

Szabolcs who has his beer next to me in SigmaLand
asked what TGIF means. Thank God Is Friday!

Hiking 2 or how the story should look

2010-01-13T00:41:00.005+02:00

(it's translated from Hungarian ...)

-----: continue, I'm very curious
spitav: that's all
-----: how the landscape looked?
spitav: as you can see from the pictures, really nice
spitav: big white snow all around the hill and many many mountains in the distance
------: Anyway I cannot force you to tell me how the snow crackled at your every step and how the ideas were tiptoeing in your head because of the respect for the nature
------: how Spidi sometimes stood mute and was staring into the distance, researching the future and perhaps the past
------: etc.
------: that's what I expect
------: but it seems in vain
spitav: heh?
spitav: continue please!
------: :-))
spitav: I'll put it on my blog!
------: :-))
spitav: very good ... and realistic :-))
spitav: Just do not expect such a thing from me
------: I'm not writing it I expect you to do it
------: you did not reborn on this hiking
------: you became dumb

My smart (ass) phone follows me :-)

2010-01-13T00:23:00.004+02:00

I left my camera at my cousins place so I had only my iPhone during hiking.

This lead me to the revelation that my phone is capable of following me and by default it does it.

You can check it yourself just follow these steps:

1.) Open this on a different tab

09.01.2010_Kelemen_havasok

2.) You should see now the album with the pictures
3.) On the right side at the bottom you should see a small map and under it the link "View map" (this may be in a different language depending on your google settings). Click on it
4.) There you go ... the pictures were automatically saved on the map at the location where they were made based on the GPS coordinates saved by my smart phone with the pictures

What about privacy you may ask? ... if it bothers you the phone is so smart that you can even turn this "feature" off ;-)

Hiking to purify

2010-01-12T23:36:00.006+02:00

At the beginning of each year (3rd time now) my friend Spidi and I have to go hiking on a mountain.
During the Holidays there are lots of reasons to eat and drink in an unhealthy way so this can be seen as some kind of purification. Taking into account our fitness, it is purifying, especially if we do it like this year.

We started on Saturday early morning but the destination was finalized only on Thursday night. We did not book any place to stay we said we will find something.

This year the goal was to get to Lake Iezer in the Calimani/Kelemen mountains.

It was nice because we got wonderful warm weather and snow all around us, completed by a beautiful landscape and silence.

It was exhausting, extremely, because we did not really know the number of kilometers we have to walk (after all it seems it was ~30kms), we thought that since down the weather is too hot for this season probably there is no snow on the mountain but there was (most of the time 20-30 cms but on a never ending path 50cms also) and there were no tracks in it so we had to made it for ourselves.

We were really close to the lake ;-) ... and lucky that some guys with snowmobiles gave us a ride for 7 kms.

At the end in the dark when we got back to the cars we were just like two old men complaining about everything that hurt us.
After the dinner nobody left to drink the wines, we slept from 22:00 till 12:00 next day ...

Healthy purifying hiking ... just like planned

The conclusion ... we should do it more often ;-)

My favorite picture:

Pictures:

Spidis pictures (I can not share them for some reason so here's the link

Just moved in

2010-01-11T01:41:00.007+02:00

Probably most of you already know that we're offshore, so we moved back to Cluj/Kolozsvar/Clausenburg.

This is why Going offshore is officially closed.
If there will be anything worth mentioning you'll find it here ... if you're interested.

P.S if something is not here, it still may be worth mentioning, I just have those lazy periods, quite often, when maintaining a blog seems too stressful :-)
If you know a better title for this blog feel free to recommend it at the comments!