In love with London, infatuated with Paris

In Love with London
Originally uploaded by metaphoric.

Quite honestly, Paris is quite a skanky city, all things considered. The streets are filled with grub, not quite clean, the city has well dressed people but dirty metro stations.

Yet all things considered, there's something distinctly sexual in the energy of the city. It features fast driving, slick talking cab drivers alongside ambling couples who stop to steal a kiss on a bridge as fast cars drive by.

I wouldn't say Paris is romantic, however, unlike how it is often portrayed. Try Prague for that one. Romance somehow is too clean a notion to be associated with Paris. But sexy - oui oui. And nothing summarizes that picture quite so well as this poster, plastered all over the Metro stations in Paris.

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I just realised that it has really been quite a while since my last blog post. And with good reason. There's plenty to blog about, but I just haven't quite found the time to write anything about it.

Without being too dry about mundane topics, here's basically what had happened in the last two months or so that has elapsed in my life.

I've...

1. Changed jobs in the same company.
2. Relocated to a different postal code, different district... in fact, different country and different continent.
3. Been in 3 different countries in the course of a week.
4. Attempted getting new bank accounts, rented apartments and a whole new life in the course of 3 weeks.
5. Dealt with a totally different keyboard configuration.
6. Changed the layout of my blog (its neater this way)

So yes, I've been busy. Understandably.

It's probably going to be easier to keep track of my life (where I've been and where I am going) through my Flickr page than through here - in the end. Since most of the time these days I'll end up travelling with little else than a trusty camera.

I'll try to keep up.

It's funny how far the extent one would be willing to go in pursuit of an old dream. I say old, because it wasn't even a current one, and it started with a strange and probably silly now in hindsight promise to move vaguely towards the land of the Oranje. Whatever happened to that, mij engel?

So many times I find myself on a distant shore, sings Sarah Brightman in my ears. Too many acquisitions along the way. Digital SLR, 60gb iPod, rented apartment to call my own, a one-way ticket to the EU. Too many broken promises, too many meaningless dreams, too much effort in pursuit of a "running away".

But I am still propelled along, like the backward cars of a headlong train, towards a future that I can only grasp as a good idea in the corners of my mind.

The Power of Three

I just had to log this random post. For some strange reason, in thinking about baby girl names, I've always invariably, mysteriously ended up in trios of names starting with the same alphabet. Perhaps this has something to do with the Fates and Furies, or just that there aren't generally more than 3 female baby names starting with the same alphabet that I like.

For example, a few of my favourites are: (starting from eldest to youngest) -

• Ruth, Rachel and Rebecca
• Katelyn, Kirsten and Kimberley
• Valerie, Vivienne and Veronique
• Catherine, Christine and Clara

I love naming kids. I just hate having them.