The Nutcracker

We went to see The Royal Ballet's Nutcracker last week. The ballet is truly like a winter fairy tale - with lots of snow and magic. The decorations were created taking into consideration the play of light and shadow and they change very dynamically during the performance - which really makes it a very special experience.

Here is my favourite moment from the ballet - after the clock strikes midnight magic happens and everything is moving. I was amazed at how quickly things changed on the stage. You could see the Christmas tree increase 3 times in size - and that all just happened out of the blue without any visible human help.



Obviously the music was incredible too. Almost every piece of the ballet was very familiar and hence it felt so beautifully comfortable to be the lucky viewer of this performance. Here are some pictures from the theatre, unfortunately we couldn't shoot during the performance:






photos by Olga and Arek except for the top one

SLEEP

Every day I'm going to bed after 2am and every morning at 7 I promise myself this won't happen again. ...Do you know the feeling?


image via Tumblr

Year 2011

I hope 2012 is being very good to all of you so far!

Here is an attempt to recap what 2011 was like - maybe a little late, but why not? :) Now that I think of it - 2011 was truly a year of change and lots of exciting moments, revelations and accomplishments. And you have no idea how much your comments and visiting my blog mean to me. Thank you for encouraging me last year! Here are some highlights from 2011 which you may recall and also some which I didn't really post about.

SO... LAST YEAR I:

1. ...celebrated Christmas and New Year in India. Definitely an unforgettable experience - having a proper New Year's Eve party in a tropical palm grove with proper Christmas lights, mojitos, a swimming pool and freshly opened coconuts :)



2. ...had a chance to see elephants and leopards in the wild and even live among them in the jungle in Sri Lanka where we went straight after New Year's celebrations.



3. ...went to Maldives - my dream destination of many years :). The biggest highlight was diving about 25 metres deep and seeing 2 stingrays 'flying' by like birds. Seeing sharks completely uninterested in you was pretty awesome too.



4. ...lay awake through my knee surgery. I was curious to experience this. It kind of gave me things to think about through the painful days afterwards.



5. ...reinvented my Tumblr.



6. ...spent Easter back at home in Belarus, which is lovely in spring..



6. ...discovered Berlin as a true city for young people, young artists and art appreciators.



7. ...went all around Iceland by car with a group of 7 friends. Seeing whales, bathing in termal spas surrounded by lava fields and going in a boat on a glacier lake full of icebergs are just 3 tiny reasons to visit this amazing island - there are many more!



8. ...visited Athens, but most importantly spent a 'pre-honeymoon' on Greek islands, which I'm yet to post more about, I promise! Those Milos beaches accesible only from water, Santorini volcano and non-stop parties on Mykonos are great highlights of the Cyklades.







9. ...got married! Which was the most emotional day of my life.



10. ...moved from Gdansk to London to live and found a new job.





11. ...celebrated my pet's birthday :)))) Ralph is 4!



12. ...celebrated Halloween - haha, this is the influence of living in the UK :)



13. ...celebrated my birthday for the first time in 7 years ;). (actually celebrated lots of other great things as well)

14. ...went to see Tchaikovsky's 'The Sleeping Beauty' performed by Royal Ballet. Totally amazing!



15. ...had the most beautiful Christmas tree of all times!



16. ... and finally switched from PC to Mac :))).



The year 2011 was a pretty amazing year for me. Hopefully 2012 turns out somewhat similar! Have a really exciting year ahead!

photos by Olga and Arek except for the top and the bottom ones

... Missing Winter

I never thought I would actually say this... But, I miss Eastern Europe's proper cold and snowy winters... 'Proper' as winters from my childhood - with lots of crisp snow, -20 and lots of sun and glitter all around. It almost seems these days that those winters were a fairy tale made up by my imagination. I guess I miss winter so much because this wasn't a particular snowy Christmas in most parts of Europe - apart of course from the countries where it usually snows (like Bulgaria ;)).. and our last winter was very short too and mostly tropical - as we spent most of it in India. And here in London one does not even feel cold and doesn't need any proper winter clothes - I could literally survive walking in my ballerinas and a raincoat all winter long. And... you might not believe it, but the trees are in bloom here now - I can see one right in front of my window...

So I am giving up and posting this couple of snowy pictures from 2 years back from Belarus where I very much wish I could be right now enjoying some sun and snow. Hope you would enjoy them too :). Have a good winter!








photos by Olga

Ok, I Thought I Won't Do Resolutions This Year :)

But :) When I saw these I quite liked them because I haven't felt particularly creative last year. It's hard to stay creative while your work has very little to do with creativity. And the amount of time I spend at work - although luckily now it is 1 hr a day less than in Gdansk :) - is still too long and leaves me lazy and inspirationless at times.





Oh, and my other resolution is of course to blog more. I've really missed it and was lousy at it in 2011 :(. How come that 24hrs a day is never enough for me??

via Loose Threads

Favourite Day of The Year

Happy 2012, everyone! Do not let your dreams be dreams!
I wish you lots of LOVE - beautiful and simple!






photos from Tumblr

¤ ¤ ¤ З Калядами! ¤ Merry Christmas! ¤ С наступающим! ¤ Wesołych Świąt! ¤ God Jul! ¤ Feliz Navidad! ¤ ¤ ¤

Have a happy, warm and cosy Christmas with your friends and family! Wouldn't you agree it is a good time to actually follow a couple of family traditions, cook something really really good and spend some time just lazing around in your pyjamas, having winter style coffees, watching movies or just reading beside your Christmas tree. Make some time for that. Have good fun!














photos by Arek

Ёлки 2 :)

This is officially my favourite comedy of 2011 :) Totally brilliant! :D



Sorry - Russian only, I hope it will be translated into English soon.

A Bit of Culture

My dear friend Ti came to visit us for a couple of days and we spent what one could call a very cultural weekend together :)

We started our weekend on Friday night with a dinner at a Chinese buffet in China town which looked bright and colourful even in the pouring rain.



Due to Ti's efforts of getting up at 6am to queue in the cold wind with other hundreds of people in front of The National Gallery - all willing to get tickets which were long before bought out and sold on the internet for up to 350 pounds - we managed to visit Leonardo da Vinci exhibition. The exhibition - the first of its kind anywhere in the world - is the most complete display of Leonardo’s rare surviving paintings ever held.



Next on our agenda was Windsor castle, which is quite an impressive architectural structure and holds a very big collection of art belonging to the British Royal Family. Windsor is a very pleasant town to spend a day in - it has a small cosy centre with little shops and nice cafes. As it appears that tickets to Windsor Castle are valid for the whole year, we'll definitely come back to both the town and the Castle some time in spring.



Below are the pictures of some of my favourite Windsor Castle rooms. I was also curious to learn that the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree was brought over to the Royal Family from Germany and it was Queen Victoria who made this a wide-spread tradition across the country and probably all Europe by letting a picture of the Royal Family around Christmas tree being published in a newspaper in 1848.


The King's Bed Chamber


The Crimson Drawing Room


The Green Drawing Room

Our journey that day ended with a visit to an Indian restaurant on Brick Lane by which we again incorporated a whole new bit of a different culture into our weekend :).



Next day we were pretty tired after the previous trip and as it was too hard to get up early, we decided to take it easy and after breakfast at home we headed to one of the biggest bookshops in London - right next to Charing Cross and Trafalgar square, where we spent good couple of hours and I bought a couple of books I'm looking forward to be inspired by very soon.



It was easy to take a walk straight to Westminster from Trafalgar - we were lucky to be passing by Royal Mews at exactly 4PM to be able to see the daily Queen's Lifeguards and Horses inspection. Straight after to warm ourselves up and sit down we dropped by St Stephens Tavern - a very traditional pub just opposite The Houses of Parliament - for some afternoon tea and a quick snack.





I was truly taken by surprise with my Baked Potato dish - which turned up to be very tasty - as I have previously never been a fan of this typically British dish.


images by Arek, Olga and TI except for those from Windsor Castle, Chinatown and Brick Lane

The last highlight of the weekend was the organ recital at Westminster Abbey we visited, which was also one of the not many reasons you would normally be let inside the Abbey as these days it is closed for visitors more often than not.