Research work: How long is "5 Greek minutes"?

Just a little clarificacion: The development of this formula is based on an profound research.

All rights reserved (c)

This calculation in fact depends on many factors:

GT = T*[1 - T/(HS*60)] + HT*dwf*ff

GT - Greek time[min]

T - Time as the rest of the world understands [min]

HS - Hours of sun [hours/day]

HT - Halara time needed for average Greek native [min/day]

dwf - day of the week corrective factor [0; 1]

• Monday = 0,7
  
• Tuesday = 0,6
  
• Wednesday = 0,4
  
• Thursday = 0,78
  
• Friday = 0,9
  
• Saturday = 1
  
• Sunday = 1
  

ff - food factor

• Before lunch/dinner time - 0,1
  
• After lunch/dinner time - 0,2
  

Example1:

Calculations based on a normal Friday in August after lunch/dinner(ref. solar calendar)

GT = T*[1 - T/(HS*60)] + HT*dwf*ff

GT = 5*[1-5/(12,08*60)] + 240*0,9*0,2

GT = 48,17 min

Example2:

Calculations based on a normal Wednesday August before lunch/dinner(ref. solar calendar)

GT = T*[1 - T/(HS*60)] + HT*dwf*ff

GT = 5*[1-5/(12,08*60)] + 240*0,4*0,1

GT = 14,56 min

El barri de Sant Andreu mola molt!

In one of the first posts we have already explained what correfoc is. So take a look back to refresh your memory. This topic just poped up because of a pure coincidence.

So we are spending this normal saturday morning/afternoon, when it takes you a lot of time to wake up, get ready, decide what you want to do and so on...

After 17 o'clock when you finally get out of home, you go to eat some lunch in a nice place in the district, our district - barri Sant Andreu. And just when you think that there are no surprises waiting for you this day anymore, so you decide to take metro and look for some exciting things in the center but .... no, Sant Andreu has a surprise for you.

Sudently you hear all this rytmic noise of drums, lough of small children dressed as small devils and louds of people filling the small streets around the main square of the district. All this bustle is because of correfoc and another catalan traditions. It was so amazing that we got carried away with this huge crowd of people, dances, music and fire.

Calçotada season

Calçotada season starts in February and last till the end of March, beginning of April. It is a gastronomical Catalan tradition where calçots are consumed in exaggerated amounts. For the ones who are wondering what da... is a calçot we will explain: Wikipedia says that a calçot is a variety of scallion known as Blanca Grand Tardana from Lleida. If still you don't have a clue of what is it, we will try it with our words: It is a kind of onion more tender and softer. A calçot looks like this:

Altought this event it's called calçotada, the main actor here are not calçots, but the sauce, mmm.... romesco :) (Again wikipedia translation looks convincing :P)

15th of February we went to Helena's place in la Garriga (a village 40Km from Barcelona) to have our first calçotada from the season, and the first ever for Vikachuu. As you can see she was super excited :D

But she was also a little bit scared watching how they were "burning" what has supposed to be our food, and indeed, calçots are cook with a very strong fire that make them black from outside but very tender from inside.

Manual to eat calçots:

0. Cover your dear clothes with a napkin

1. Peel them, removing the black carbonised skin

2. Hold the calçot from the upper part (the green one) and soak it into the sauce

3. Rise the calçot above you heat and open you mouth

4. Enjoy!

5. Reapeat from 1 to 4, 10 times

6. If still not dead go to 5

7. Now you are ready to continue with the meat :)

Feliz Cumple Años!

Happy birthday Beta!!!

On your birthday I wish you a lot of happiness and joy; I hope all of your wishes come true. May each hour and minute be filled with delight, and your birthday be perfect for you!

08/03/2009

Vikachuu

7th of March

The day started with a Calçotada (you will read about it next articles) at Cris place. It was a sunny hot pre-spring day and as always, cris special calçot's sauce didn't decive us. 

We also have some nice guests durign that weekend and we all could enjoy the perfect weather, the super food and the good company :)

 

  

After a siesta, in the evening we meet all again for dinner in Chinese, go for drinks and to club later. 

  

    

Guapos, thanks for this suepr party, it was really great! 

Us estimo molt! Mua!

Beta

 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9058107705615784759

I amsterdam

Here I am. After long, long looooong period of waiting, I got myself together and said “No, it has to stop! I can not leave people without posts in the blog!!!” hahhahahaha

But to be serious, there is a huge part missing of stories from the last post until now, but as I just came back from amazing trip to Amsterdam, want to share it with you while I still have the memories fresh.

      

So I went to Amsterdam on a university project – IVCF 2009, which means International Virtual Consulting Firm. It is a project for students of Amsterdam and Barcelona. The project is connected with marketing and my case is connected with fashion and design, so I am even more excited.

      

I have been already 3 times in Amsterdam before and every time I go there I get a new feeling and new emotions from this city. The first time I really didn’t like it, but now I probably look at it quite differently.  I met a lot of nice people and made a lot of new friends and also got quite inspired by many things.

    

Photos above: making a show in the Dam Square.

Further on just wanted to share with you something which I really liked in Amsterdam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrgeIT1cemE&feature=related

Poem: YES I AM

One voice was raised and sounded strange,

just a thought turned an idea, into something familiar,

it was the whisper of freedom, that was starting a revolution,

with this spirit as a weapon and unity as a shield. 

Yes I am. 

The world was first amazed by the sex, drugs and rock & roll, 

these people are crazy, 

these people are strange,

they didn’t understand the power of the claim,

impossible is nothing, was in front of their face. 

Yes I am. 

An empty canvas land,

is a world without a map, 

where air can be shared, and invisible is fear, like a dog to a child,

ideas will spin, like flowers grow in the field. 

It was the dream of a guy that ate flower bulbs to survive, 

same reason brought a woman to work from Surinam.

Yes I am.

Lots of no’s were said but just one yes remains, 

where one - seven - four, just means we are more,

it was for sure, that no colors stayed pure. 

Yes I am. 

Oui je suis. 

Si io sono. 

Sim eu sou. 

Si yo soy. 

Ja ich bin. 

Ja ik ben. 

A leaf left the tree and arrived in Amsterdam,

like many hopes of others,and more and more they will,

inspired by something you can just feel. 

Yes I am.

VIKACHUU

VIKACHUU in MADrid

Hey guys/girls!

We did promise to write more often, but it's as impossible as for me and Beta to come on time for a meeting! :P But I am taking some time off from the parties and studies, to drop a line about my trip to Madrid, which actually was quite some time ago ... :)

So after spending some weeks in Barcelona, I went on my first trip in eSpain, to Madrid. There I felt like if I am living a double ERASMUS life, cause I was spending a lot of time with ERASMUS ppl from Madrid. And of course most of all with my beloved girls from Tallinn - Annika, Milen and some LBG Madrid members. Thanks guys for taking me to the great tapas place, for hosting me, for all the parties we had!!! I had a great time with you and you are more than welcome to visit me and Beta in Barcelona.

The Orange wall

So, the ones who have visited us in these months, have seen that the flat looks much more different from what it was when we moved in.
After a lot of visits to IKEA and many painting sessions the apartment started to look like HOME. We painted everything in white, bought white furniture, and a striped sofa, which looks like a bar code. But it was toooo white, so we decided to add some colours in our life. As a result which you can see in the pics, we painted the wall in the most juicy orange colour!!! We hope you like it!!!!

We liked the orange colour so much, that we bought also the accessories in this colour.

Besos ;)

Editors corner >>>
We have received some complains about being slow with our blog articles :) And we wanted to apologise, but because of having many visitors and some parties and a lot of stuff besides that, it's difficult to find time. But we promise that we will write more often from now on!

Granada & Sevilla

The 2nd of October we went for our first trip with Cris and Mercè to Granada!!! Some months ago, we found one of those Ryanair offers which you simply can't refuse :) and we bought them with any idea if we would finally go there or how the trip would look like.

But finally we all managed to solve all the obtacles; the 4 of us going to "the South" :D

We arrived to Granada's ariport in the evening and our first movement were to get to the hostel. After leaving the bags there and check that beds were not so bad, we went for a first exploration looking for a good tapas place to eat. We ate in two diferent places several tapas and although we were very hungry after the trip, we could not finish all the tapas we got.

After tapas, Vikachuu and Beta didn't feel yet in the mood to go to bed, so we continue our exploration in the night clubbing. Seems and easy task at the first moment, as many people gives you many many flayers around the center, but the complicated part was to understand people indications, as sometimes we got the feeling we were talking different languages.

Finally, we danced a little bit in a club were there was an erasmus party and we end up later in a nice English pub having delicious cocktails (easily, it became our favourite bar there).

The day after we woke up early and we went for breakfast (xurros con chocolate) and walk to vist Granada. It is a facinating city with a lot of history and its narrow streets and plazas are very cute, specially under october sun always arround the 26ºC :)

In the afternoon we had entrances for the Alhambra and we walk there for hours, visiting islamic palaces, gardens, fountains and in general, behaving like real "guiris" (including taking ALL the most stupid pictures possible we could perform).

After this exhausting day and a shower we still had energy for some more Granada fiesta.

On Saturday, we had our last walk&breakfast in Granada and we went to get the car we rented to go to Sevilla. They gave us a red Seat Leon and we were very happy with it, specially Cris :)

Some hours later (2h from Granada to Sevilla + 2h trying to find a place to park) we were walking in the lively streets without a hostel yet. But the task to look for it was not half hard it was to leave the car in a secure place. And again, more tapas for dinner and a coffee in a terrace next to Sevilla's cathedral, and still could not believe that on an October night we could feel the warm summer breeze, the night was magic.

We continue with our visits in Sevilla on a happy sunny Sunday till late in the afternoon. And at night we were so exhausted that we decided to spend the night in our hostel's terrace.

Last day we took the car to explore some village next to Sevilla till the time to take our fight back home.

We recommend you to do this trip on a condition if you have such a wonderful company like we did.

Guapas, what is the next destination? :)