Eliss in Paris

Hello everybody!Hope everything is going great for all of you.
Here there are some of the pictures of my fantastic trip to Paris! I try not to repeat the ones Toma already put. It was really good time. Some of you will enjoy this things soon ;)

Kisses for everybody! And see you soon! :)








Fantastic cook! Palachinka c nutella! Mmm......

Brussels

Capital of the European Union and other criminal institutions such as NATO, Brussels is the biggest city of my little flat rainy country.

The most famous feature of Brussels is the Grand’place, which is at some periods of the year all covered with flowers.

Then we have a lot of “modern” architecture, such as the Atomium, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1958.

More seriously, the most famous architecture style of Brussels is Horta style, from the name of the Belgian architect, whose style is characterised by big round windows, high ceilings, bright colours, flowers, nature elements,… Horta style houses are the most expensive in Brussels.

Jacques Brel, René Magritte, beer, chocolate, French fries and mussels, Tintin, les Schtroumpfs and Jean-Claude Van Damme were either born or lived in that awkward city.

It is not very big (1, 5 million people), not very beautiful (and sometimes even very ugly), but it must be one of the only place in the world (with NY, London and Amsterdam) where you can find a kebab close to a Chinese restaurant, an Italian one, an Indian night shop, a hairdresser from Congo, a Polish or Ukrainian supermarket and a Moroccan phone shop in the same street. Indeed, not less than 128 nationalities are represented in Brussels and it’s one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world.

Thanks to all this, the city is living. It’s full of restaurants, cafes, bars, clubs,…for all tastes, all ages, all origins. It’s also a cultural city, with at least 30 different theatres, operas, museums, 15 cinemas, from the huge multiplex to the little and dark author movie cinema. It has also many art galleries, antique shops, etc etc.

It’s maybe not the best city in the world, it’s maybe difficult to get used to the climate, and to feel the real atmosphere of Brussels in 3 days, but if you get to know it not like a little Japanese behind his camera, spending half an hour on the Grand’Place, it’s a city that you might like.

Katowice - the city with lot of faces

Now me :) Finally I found some time to write about my city and it became harder task, that I could expect. Katowice is the capital of Silesia region, full of other, smaller cities everywhere around, set one next to another. It's a big industrial region, so even if there are here some monuments and nice places, at the first view usually you can see just chimneys, mines and dirt. That's why I wrote "the city with lot of faces". At one little area you can find awful communist buildings, some archtectural experiments, historical monuments, mines, secessional or modernistic tenements. So now I want to invite you for a short trip around my Katowice, the city, which people usually don't like, but which has a speciffic atmosphere, nice, hospitable people, and places, which you cannot find anywhere else in Poland.

Spodek- sport and concert hall, looks like UFO. It's like visit card of Katowice

Main steet, lot of old tenements

My high school in Szopienice district.

Old communist shopping center "Skarbek" in the middle of the city and in the middle of secessional street

Yes, yes... New, old, older. Nice, awful, dirty, clean, sophisticated, industrial. That's Katowice. Architectural mess.

Nikiszowiec - one of the most magical districts of Katowice. It's a very old place built for miners, from the mines nearby



Winter evening at one of the streets in the center



Block, where I live. District not very beautiful, but well... Home sweet home :) and you are always welcome here



Giraffe at the entrance to the biggest urban park in Europe. It's set at the area of Chorzow city, but it's relax place for people from all the region. There is a fair, ZOO rosarium, planetarium, stadium, lift and lot lot place to walk or ride a bike. And the best thing is, that it's just 10 min. for my home :)


Grey reality. But that is what makes Katowice exceptional place.




Industrial city landskapes in good light. They can look colourful

Poznań - Nusia's place!!!

ok. it's my turn, i found some fotos in internet so i can show u my city :) Poznań - one of the most beautiful places in Poland. It's very old city from VIII century.
Coat of arms

Goats on the town hall - symbol of city

Opera and one of the most beautiful parks in the centre.

Imperial castle. Centre of culture.

Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul. The oldest cathedral in Poland.

Stary Browar - one of the best palce in my city. It's centre of shopping, art and buisness. In 2005 received The International Council of Shopping Centers award for the best centre on the world. :) and it's realy realy cool!!! it's also centre of culture. it's very big building and very beautiful!!!!

In the city and around are a lot of lakes. cool places for meeting with friends :)
Stary Marych - Old Marych - fictitious figure which was very popular in my town. He was character on the radio program with local dialect.


one of the most famous and very ugly communist building in Poznań. the name is "okrąglak" because is...circular - okrągły in polish. it was shoppin centre and now on the 7 floor is disco club and on the others is language school.

Monument of Bamberka. "Bambry" it's a name of people that was coming to my town from Germany in XVIII century. They was living in villages around Poznań.
now we are calling Bamber person that look awful, unfashionable.

Old part of town.

Central building of my university.

Old part of town.

well... i hope u like my wonderful city :) all of u are always welcome here. :)

Nacho's poster

This is my first post in these blog.

The photo is the goodbye poster that you gave to me my last night in Bulgaria. It is in Spanish, because I didn't know English and I continue without know English (ni puta idea del jodido inglés).

And finally

With this big article, I forgot to tell how things are going on for me. After Bulgaria and after Spain, where I spent 10 days in Elisa's house to celebrate San Fermin, I am finally in my house in France. Elisa is coming tomorrow to meet me and in the first days of august, it will be Nusia, Magda and Laura who will be here. Together we will go to Jerome's wedding where we will meet a lot of people I hope.

Edit : stupid as I am, I forgot to say that all the pictures I have from Bulgaria are now on my web album. here

See you !

Paris, city of Love !!

Paris is the capital city of France and there is almost 2.5 millions inhabitants. Personaly, I live in a little city called Fontenay-aux-roses which is situated in the close suburb of Paris called the "little crown". Paris and the "little crown" is populated by more than 10 millions people (more people than in whole Lituania).

About my city there is not a lot to say :

• the nuclear research institute (which is now located in a city in the middle of nowhere because Fontenay-aux-roses is too urbanised) was the first in Europe to work with plutonium,
• the city is called Fontenay because of the springs ("funtain" is "fontaine" in french) and aux-roses because here there were the roses plantations to furnish Louis IX (the Sun King) in Versailles,
• a famous french singer (Maxime le Forestier) sang a song called "Fontenay-aux-roses" because he is borned there.

But of course about Paris there is a lot to say. The city is divided in 21 districts. We have 16 subway lines (that is called "Metropolitain" but everybody say "Metro"), more than 1000 bus lines, 3 tram lines and almost 10 train lines to connect the suburb to the center (for exemple I take a train and in 20 minutes, I am in the center).

First a bit of History. Paris was founded by one of the tribe which consisted the people called "Les Gaulois" (everybody know Asterix and Obelix I hope [evenif they are Belgium]). The name of the tribe was Parisi and they changed the first name of the city, Lutecia, to the actual name. I think the story is a bit more complicated but history classes are a bit far and I don't remember everything. Paris is crossed by a river called "La Seine" and the heart of the city is two islands ("Saint-Louis" et "La cité") where you can find the world famous cathedral "Notre-Dame de Paris" (with Quasimodo the monster inside [David don't laugth]).

In the middle of 19th century, a guy called Haussmann (I will not tell the story of the guy but it's an important one) turned Paris into a big yard and transformed all the city. Thanks to him (he did a great job), the city is now the one everybody knows all around the world.

During World War 2, Paris almost disappeared. All important buildings were full of explosives substances and ready to explode if the order was given. Hitler gave the order when the parisians, which heard about the imminent arrival of Allies army, rised up against Nazi. But, the general Von Choltitz, in charge of Paris, decided to ignore the order and save the city.

To finish historical part, a word about the symbol of Paris : the Eiffel Tower. It has been built in 1889 for the Universal Exhibition by an architect called Gustave Eiffel.

Paris is one of the most touristic place in the world. The is a huge number of things to see and to visit : La Tour Eiffel, Notre-Dame de Paris, Le Louvre, Le Grand Palais, Les Invalides, Les Tuileries, Le Trocadéro, La Sorbonne (the most famous french university), Le Panthéon, L'Arc-de-Triomphe, Les Champs-Elysées and a lot more. They here also few parks and gardens but nothing comparable to Hide Park in London or Central Park in New York, evenif they are quite big and calm.

In Paris, it's forbidden to build tower higher than 37 meters. There is just one exception which is the Montparnasse Tower. But thanks to that restriction, Paris keep the same face threw the years.

Paris is well known for all the little cafés and restaurant everywhere. But most of them are quite expensive and for students like us, it's not very easy to go out.

And don't forget that Paris is also known as the capital of luxury and fashion. Fashion TV in Bulgaria took the Eiffel Tower as logo.

I don't know what more to say so I will just say what I like to do in this city :

• seat down in the riverside, take beers and guitar and stay hours just here talking, eating, drinking, playing music
• walk in the street of the latin district which are always animated (and also where there is the Ben&Jerry's ice cream shop !)
  
• go out in the 13th district where there is cool bars with cool music (and the cheapest beer)
  
• go near Pigalle place, full of well known places to go out at night with all kind of music (and also a lot of prostitutes but not for me)
• and a lot more to discover :-)

Tour Eiffel

Notre-Dame de Paris

Montmartre

Le Sacré Coeur

Le canal St Martin

A café

Le louvre

And to finish, a word about the city where I am studying. It's Compiègne and it's in the north of Paris (1 hour by car). It's a very small city where there is absolutly nothing to do. But we are more than 3000 students living there.

The castle where we are sometimes allowed to do parties in suits and dresses.

My University

The new building of my university where I will never study