It’s nice to take a break and enjoy the view…
It was such a beautiful autumn day that Mica had to check it out too!
autumn
cat
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
The Autumn View
Kids are off from school this week over here, which means that I also get a vacation by default. If only it were that! My boss at the agency I translate for is on the ball and figured out that I won’t be busy with teaching this week, so my e-mail keeps getting flooded with new documents to be either translated or proofread. Then there’s this freelance job I took on (big mistake) and I have kind of been ignoring it (perhaps hoping that when I wake up in the morning, the work will magically have gotten done). Some vacation!
It’s nice to take a break and enjoy the view…
It was such a beautiful autumn day that Mica had to check it out too!
autumn
cat
It’s nice to take a break and enjoy the view…
It was such a beautiful autumn day that Mica had to check it out too!
autumn
cat
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Five years ago today…
This post is not about politics. It’s not about conspiracy theories. It’s about what I was going through, 5 years ago on this day, at this time.
September 11th 2001 began as any other workday had for me. I woke up, went to the primary school I teach at, taught my classes… It was the beginning of the school year and early on that particular evening, there were going to be the first parent-teacher meetings. After my last class had ended, I had a couple of hours to kill before the meetings. Three coworkers and I decided to go get a coffee and snack at a nearby café to pass the time. It was 3:20pm when one of my colleague’s mobiles rang. It was her daughter, freaking out: “I don’t believe it! America is under attack!”. My first reaction was to look at my co-worker and say “Umm… your daughter has obviously been smoking some strong shit again… She’s probably watching some freaky movie…”
Well, I decided to give my mother a call; I assumed she’d know what was going on since Montreal isn’t that far away from NYC. My mother confirmed the story we had heard and I was suddenly overcome with horror! Julie! Oh my God! Julie! She only lives a few blocks away from the WTC! She works there!
Julie was my classmate and best friend all through high-school. We stuck by each other through everything and anything, shared many fun times, many tears.
After university, I moved to Europe. Julie moved to NYC to attend law school. She had been working as a corporate lawyer for less than a year; it had been her first job. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
Julie’s parents still live in Montreal. I immediately told my mom to call her mom to see if everything was ok.
It was time for the meetings. I didn’t know whether my friend was alive or dead and I was shaking.
I was like a zombie during the entire meeting. I can’t remember a damn thing I said to those parents. I don’t even remember which road I took to get home. I remember going into my room, turning on the TV and staring at the images on the screen as tears streamed down my cheeks. Until came the call of relief…
My mother called me back. She had spoken to Julie’s mom. Julie had called her parents to let them know she was still alive. It turns out she had pressed the snooze button a couple of extra times and was running late. So rather than already being at work, she was just leaving her apartment when the first plane hit, and that was what saved her.
She would have to evacuate her apartment, she was covered in soot and was having trouble breathing, but she was still alive!
I am and always will be thankful that Julie was spared.
To all of those who have suffered because of what happened on that day, my thoughts are with you.
9/11
NYC
WTC
September 11th 2001 began as any other workday had for me. I woke up, went to the primary school I teach at, taught my classes… It was the beginning of the school year and early on that particular evening, there were going to be the first parent-teacher meetings. After my last class had ended, I had a couple of hours to kill before the meetings. Three coworkers and I decided to go get a coffee and snack at a nearby café to pass the time. It was 3:20pm when one of my colleague’s mobiles rang. It was her daughter, freaking out: “I don’t believe it! America is under attack!”. My first reaction was to look at my co-worker and say “Umm… your daughter has obviously been smoking some strong shit again… She’s probably watching some freaky movie…”
Well, I decided to give my mother a call; I assumed she’d know what was going on since Montreal isn’t that far away from NYC. My mother confirmed the story we had heard and I was suddenly overcome with horror! Julie! Oh my God! Julie! She only lives a few blocks away from the WTC! She works there!
Julie was my classmate and best friend all through high-school. We stuck by each other through everything and anything, shared many fun times, many tears.
After university, I moved to Europe. Julie moved to NYC to attend law school. She had been working as a corporate lawyer for less than a year; it had been her first job. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
Julie’s parents still live in Montreal. I immediately told my mom to call her mom to see if everything was ok.
It was time for the meetings. I didn’t know whether my friend was alive or dead and I was shaking.
I was like a zombie during the entire meeting. I can’t remember a damn thing I said to those parents. I don’t even remember which road I took to get home. I remember going into my room, turning on the TV and staring at the images on the screen as tears streamed down my cheeks. Until came the call of relief…
My mother called me back. She had spoken to Julie’s mom. Julie had called her parents to let them know she was still alive. It turns out she had pressed the snooze button a couple of extra times and was running late. So rather than already being at work, she was just leaving her apartment when the first plane hit, and that was what saved her.
She would have to evacuate her apartment, she was covered in soot and was having trouble breathing, but she was still alive!
I am and always will be thankful that Julie was spared.
To all of those who have suffered because of what happened on that day, my thoughts are with you.
9/11
NYC
WTC
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Pictures from Plitvička jezera (Plitvice Lakes), Croatia
Friday, August 25, 2006
And a few more random scenes in Montréal
St-Joseph's Oratory
View of Montréal at night from 26th floor at La Cité
View from Mount-Royal
A bunny-rabbit I saw in a park in St-Henri
And this is the front wondow of a wonderful little Turkish restaurant called Avesta (on rue Ste-Catherine, just east of Atwater) . What you can see here is a woman making bread. Quite charming. Their spinach börek is quite tasty!
Montreal
Avesta
St-Joseph's Oratory
Bunny Rabbit
Sunday, August 20, 2006
More Scenes and Fun Memories from Summer in Montréal
Back in Ljubljana and I've taken the time to get back into sync with things. It was an enjoyable summer which passed by so fast (as they always do). I am already back to my translation work and I get back to work at the school on Wednesday.
The jet-lag took a while to wear off this time. The trip back was extremely annoying due to the supposed terrorism plot... The line-ups at security checks were insane and as careful as I was with packing, I still managed to completely forget about my lighter and get it confiscated. Obviously the same thing had happened to everyone else as well. Upon arriving at the Zürich airport, the first thing you saw was a huge crowd of people from various flights run to the nearest bar and begin asking each other for a light..And nobody had one! (annoying while it was going on, but now seems like something out of a Seinfeld episode). My flight had been delayed, but luckily so had my connecting one, so I had time for coffee. My friend Marie-Claire had taken the same flight to Zürich and had missed her connecting flight to Rome, so I had some company to go with that coffee.
What a summer! Wonderful moments spent with family and old friends after so many years, while turning on the news, I was constantly reminded that things were not so wonderful everywhere else.
Back to reality.
I'm glad to be back in Ljubljana, though there are so many things I miss about Montréal, but I'll write all about that in another post. Till then, here are some recorded moments from the summer that I haven't written about till now:
Olivia had a get-together at the Copacabana on St-Laurent before going on vacation, so I at least got to see her once while I was there.
Tara & Olivia
Olivia, David, Sam & Dan
Dan & Me
Koala
On 27th July, Carole had a get-together at Shaika Café to celebrate the one year anniversary of her editing, writing, design business : Silvertree Media
Carole & her mom
Carole & Me
Rok & Karl
Pietro & Marie-Claire
Pedro
Marie-Claire & Danny
The Cake: notice the single green leaf, representing one year. Baked by Carole's mom & it was simply delicious!
On Mondays and weekends I got to hang out with my four-year-old nephew André, who is just the sweetest boy you could ever imagine!
More pics of this fine visit to come soon... I have to clean the flat up and other boring stuff like that...Back to reality indeed...
Montreal
The jet-lag took a while to wear off this time. The trip back was extremely annoying due to the supposed terrorism plot... The line-ups at security checks were insane and as careful as I was with packing, I still managed to completely forget about my lighter and get it confiscated. Obviously the same thing had happened to everyone else as well. Upon arriving at the Zürich airport, the first thing you saw was a huge crowd of people from various flights run to the nearest bar and begin asking each other for a light..And nobody had one! (annoying while it was going on, but now seems like something out of a Seinfeld episode). My flight had been delayed, but luckily so had my connecting one, so I had time for coffee. My friend Marie-Claire had taken the same flight to Zürich and had missed her connecting flight to Rome, so I had some company to go with that coffee.
What a summer! Wonderful moments spent with family and old friends after so many years, while turning on the news, I was constantly reminded that things were not so wonderful everywhere else.
Back to reality.
I'm glad to be back in Ljubljana, though there are so many things I miss about Montréal, but I'll write all about that in another post. Till then, here are some recorded moments from the summer that I haven't written about till now:
Olivia had a get-together at the Copacabana on St-Laurent before going on vacation, so I at least got to see her once while I was there.
Tara & Olivia
Olivia, David, Sam & Dan
Dan & Me
Koala
On 27th July, Carole had a get-together at Shaika Café to celebrate the one year anniversary of her editing, writing, design business : Silvertree Media
Carole & her mom
Carole & Me
Rok & Karl
Pietro & Marie-Claire
Pedro
Marie-Claire & Danny
The Cake: notice the single green leaf, representing one year. Baked by Carole's mom & it was simply delicious!
On Mondays and weekends I got to hang out with my four-year-old nephew André, who is just the sweetest boy you could ever imagine!
More pics of this fine visit to come soon... I have to clean the flat up and other boring stuff like that...Back to reality indeed...
Montreal
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Saturday, July 29, 2006
The Art of Begging in Montreal
There is an extremely large amount of panhandlers in Montreal, so you have to be creative...
Montreal
Montreal
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
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