Frustration

Frustration is when you finish an extremely difficult, 40-question marine conservation exam (in Spanish, I might add) that took you days to finish, and then go online to post your answers only to realize that online all the questions are different from the ones they sent you in the mail, and you have to start the exam over from scratch. Yeah, that's frustrating.

Travellin'

We just got back from London not long ago and we're already planning our next trip for this summer. Two weeks with my parents in Northern Italy, Austria, Germany and Switzerland. If you haven't noticed we love to travel.

We're spontaneous when it comes to most things. Sometimes our friends get frustrated with us when they ask us our plans for the weekend or the next day and our answer is always...We don't know. Our brains don't work that far ahead! I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing.

For now, we have no need to save money for the future. We probably should, but I guess everyone always has to learn the hard way. We live month to month. Our way of looking at it is...we have money left over this month?...we have a three day weekend?...let's spend it and go somewhere! We don't travel in luxury by any means. There's just something about eating a ham sandwich with a can of Coke in the dirt, and sleeping in a musty, mildewy hostal that I love. Call me crazy.

I know this post sounds like we go somewhere every weekend, but we don't...our wallets aren't big enough. We're lucky if we can take two trips a year. Travelling is just a priority right now. We want to see all that we can while we can.

This past summer we planned a cross country camping trip of Spain at 12 midnight the night before we left. Our trip to London was planned 2 days before we left. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bragging about our impulsive actions at all. Most of the time I think we have a few screws loose! We're just not keen on planning in advance. Or maybe we're procrastinators...I don't know. It works for us, though. However, when we travel with my parents (no need to mention ages :))we can't be quite as risky as we normally are. So we've started planning now...3 months in advance.

I'll let you know how this one goes.

Vintage

I've always loved walking into antique shops or general stores and seeing old rusted tin signs hanging on the wall. Old-fashioned advertising attracts me. The colors, the fonts, the style, the wholesome but at the same time provocative beauty. I like all of them. From Coca Cola to Moët Chandon to Bovril to the Women's Land Army. All of them are great.
It's not just the image that I like, it's the combination of the advertisement with the tin. I remember going to Cumberland, Maryland as a kid to visit my grandma and going down to a musty smelling room where Sam (an old man she took care of) had his collection of tin lunchboxes. I loved looking through them and making music by tapping my fingernails on them.
Two Christmases ago Jose and I went to the NC mountains with my parents, and one day walking through the town Black Mountain, we stopped in an antique shop and bought two old tins. One was Coca Cola and the other Dr. Pepper. I have them hanging on my wall in front of me. I guess that's where it all began. One of my favorite Christmas presents were some Capiello vintage coasters.

Jose has always loved the artist Alfonse Mucha. So that same Christmas I went to buy him a calendar. At the time I was completely art illiterate, so I walk into the bookshop and say, "I'm looking for a calendar of some 'Mucho' guy." The man knew who I was talking about. After 12 months of seeing Mucha's works on my kitchen wall I fell in love. Like I said before, I studied biology so I'm rather art illiterate and I just found out last night that it's called art Nouveu. Oh well, whatever it's called, I like it.

This past weekend in London we took a stroll through Notting Hill down Portobello Street and came across a shop full of tin signs. We had to stop. We left the shop with 4 tins...two of which were Mucha. I think it's become an addiction.


So the other night I did an Internet search and discovered more of Mucha, Capiello, Lautrec and others.


Through my search, I also discovered that what I really like are the advertisements. More so than their other works of art. The combination of images and words. And the icing on the cake is the tin design.



On our trip to Cordoba, we bought three Andalusian advertisements and have them hung in our bedroom.

Seeing these tins hanging on my walls reminds me of laying in bed as a child at my Uncle Rusty's old farm house in the country with a tin roof and hearing the rain fall loudly yet peacefully down.

I still tap my fingernails on them as I pass by to hear the familiar sound.

London Bridge is NOT Falling Down...It's Official

Jose and I are recuperating from London. We had a blast. Would go back tomorrow if I could. We saw in a day and a half what most people see in 3 or 4 days. I know the Underground like the back of my hand.



We flew with an Irish company called Ryanair, which is EXTREMELY cheap. They cut costs by not serving free snacks, the seats are not assigned, and they don't recline, and you have to walk out to the plane on the runway. But the planes are big jets and very safe.



We arrived at 4:30 PM and caught a train to Liverpool Street, then jumped on the underground to Bethnal Green (where our bed and breakfast was), checked in, then hit the town. That afternoon we went to Oxford Street, Picadilly Square, Big Ben, the Parliament and Westminster. Double-decker red buses, red telephone booths, old-fashion taxis, River Thames, English Pubs, Starbucks, and Gap.

























The next morning we woke up at 7AM and hit the streets again. The day's agenda was London Bridge, the London Tower, The British Museum, Buckingham Palace, China Town, Notting Hill and Carnaby Street. We saw it ALL. Don't believe me? Here's proof.






























(This is where Sir Walter Raleigh was held prisoner in the London Tower)


































Well, there you have it. London in all her glory. Long live the queen.