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venice details

ana — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:46:41 +0000

my brother has recently spent a few days with us here in ljubljana :) it was a trip of firsts for him: first time in a foreign country, first flight, first time eating mexican nachos, ćevapčići or krofs… and first carnival in venice!

being the right time of the year and so close by, we couldn’t pass the opportunity of taking him there. so we left ljubljana, bright and early on a 2am train and then… we walked and walked and walked, just taking it all in. venice is incredibly crowded but i think it is also a really happy place. the carnival feels a lot more solemn than we’re used to (which is refreshing), but it retains quite a bit of its colourful aura. we had a great day, enjoyed the sun and took a ton of photos of little things we liked.
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best costume in our book went to a guy dressed like ezio in assassin’s creed II. joão had spent half the morning commenting at how familiar everything in venice looked from the game, and how realistic it was, and “i climbed this and that building in the game!”, blablabla and then out of nowhere we see this guy and whoa! talk about a perfect moment! :)

glimpses of milano

ana — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:51:10 +0000

these are from a couple of months ago.

venice, in 2 shots

ana — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:08:59 +0000

these were the only shots that survived my minolta’s broken speed shutter (horray for the holga’s lack of mechanical-things-that-might-go-wrong!). 10 minutes & 8 euros later, and he’s as good as new, the little bastard.

venice is a maze of intensity, the kind that leaves you with headaches from noticing all the details in every single facade. makes taking pictures a bit useless, ’cause you know it’s all been photographed before. you almost want to hate the city and yet… it’s irresistible. the tiny streets, the canals, even the swarms of tourists that practically drag you with them on a very worn out path. we’ll definitely go back for more someday.

crossing europe, roadtrip style

ana — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:41:46 +0000

i’ve been away from this blog. after the last post, there were 5 weeks of surgery-and-recovery on the countryside. p’s mom is doing fine at the moment, and so we’ve moved on with our life… which brought us to our original plan: slovenia! :D

we arrived to ljubljana late last thursday, after a pretty intense 3-day roadtrip across portugal, spain, france and italy. we got good weather for traveling, mostly sunny/cloudy weather, with no rain, and lots of lovely autumn views.

noted on the way here:
* we crossed a thousand different versions of seats, citroens, renaults and lancias… but also lots of luxury brand suvs (bmw, mercedes, audi) which, given the current gas prices, is quite odd.
* in italy, you collect a toll ticket at the border with france, proceed to cross the country, and then pay the toll fee on the border with slovenia – it’s brilliant! in france, we stopped 12 times to pay toll fees…

* why the hell is portugal the country with less speed cameras among its neighbours? don’t we have one of the highest traffic accident rates in the world? :/

* i was expecting tunnels on this trip, but nobody prepared me for côte d’azur. it was kilometer after kilometer of tunnel-bridge-tunnel-bridge-tunnel-bridge… bridges are ok, but i don’t like tunnels that much… at a certain point all i wanted was to stop right there and let paulo drive… why is there never a service area when you need it?

on a positive note, our car handled the trip without breaking a sweat!

so we’re here, discovering the city and looking for a place to stay. more updates when we get that milestone accomplished :)