Elena can be really sweet.
On Saturday I went paragliding all day and by the time I got home she had put some postcards on the wall in this configuration. I was so pleased she had put up a REAL wall, as it's been ages since we have had breathing space to do one, then I realised what it said!
She certainly knows how to get my attention!
On our recent trip to Romania, I managed to get around to sending some
postcards out to some people in my REAL mail mailing list. This one went out
to Mim, who blogs at mim4art.blogspot.com
Here's what she has to say by email
Hello Andy and Elena,My postcard is the building on the left against blue sky. The building
I sent you a piece of mail this afternoon for
your REAL WALL.
I took this photo of you Cathedral
postcard on MY real wall.
best to you both,
mim
> mim4art.blogspot.com and www.mim4art.etsy.com
Lately the output of REAL mail and REAL walls by me and Elena has dropped off a cliff. We are both stuck in assignment hell, with my deadline tomorrow morning and hers in a week, so we've not had a great deal of time to do anything else.
On Saturday we went to Hammersmith to line up in the morning outside the theatre first thing in the morning. The Lyric theatre has a very cool offer for local residents on their opening night - just turn up at 9:30am the Saturday before the opening night and they'll give you a pair of tickets for the opening night for free!
So we try and make as many of these as possible, grabbing a pub breakfast beforehand, then queueing behind the other local residents for our freebie.
Here is Elena in the pub before the line, and as you can see, she has her book with her and is studying away.
No rest for us until May 5th it seems
I've been back in London for a few days now, but here is the last pic of postcards that me and Elena took in Bucharest after walking from the centre of the city to the airport.
If there's one thing that Romania is really well known for, it's the chaos of bureacracy. In the main, Romanians are lovely people and very welcoming hosts once you get to know them. However, when it comes to public services, they really do suck and it seems all common sense goes out the window as soon as a Romanian puts on a uniform.
Ask any Romanian living abroad about fines and they'll tell you that every trip you take on public transport is a minefield of avoiding pointless fines, and that no matter what you do, you will get fined on a trip.
Last time we came to Romania, me and Elena flew into Cluj-Napoca. When we got off at the airport, we had to get a bus into town. However, when you get a bus, you need to firstly buy the ticket from a booth outside, which are not necessarily at the bus stop. And for that matter they are not usually open.
That day, the booth wasn't open for some reason, so we got on the bus and tried to explain when the inspectors got on that the booth was closed and hence we couldn't buy a ticket. Obviously they didn't listen and fined us 10x the cost of a ticket. A very typical occurence.
This time, given that it was Easter when we returned, not a single booth was open in Bucharest but the buses were still running. As we had 2 hours to spare, we decided to take our chances and walked all the way there, which took us about 90 minutes. It just seemed a much better idea than paying money to morons.
A bit of a pleasant REAL wall surprise came into my inbox today from the brilliant am-y from Singapore.
I recently sent her a card, and remember her description as being the arty type who would appreciate a more arty card, so I dug up a dance card and popped it in the post.
Much to my pleasant surprise this evening I got a Flickr mail showing me that my card had arrived and found it's way onto her REAL wall in Singapore.
I'm sure you'll agree, this is a fine example of REAL wall and a pretty damn cool T-shirt too!
