You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky. ~Amelia Earhart

I hate any kind of transport. I get sick in a car, on a boat, in a train. The only means of transport I have been always able to stand is a plane. As a kid, I would wander through the aisles, read books and love night flights. This hasn't much changed now, except for the fact that I earned a take-off fear. Once the belts sign is off, I am back to enjoying my flight. In order to overcome this take-off fear as I call it, me and Bachi (my husband) have decided to drive a plane on our own. This took place in Moscow, where I sat with a pilot-instructor, who told me everything about flying, showed me everything in the plane and then allowed me to drive. 

Taking off turned out to be probably one of the easiest things in piloting; the turbulence is an absolutely normal thing - once you fly over the trees (which are warm) the warm and cold airs meet, it naturally causes jumps (as in turbulence). The hardest maneuver is supposed to be landing, which I could have never imagined - because I love landing most of all. It was great to drive a plane by myself. The emotions I had are absolutely unexplainable. Amelia Earhart, you say?

I believe in kissing, kissing a lot

"I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
— Audrey Hepburn

I love this quote because these are the words, that I would have said myself. I love the author of it, since she is my idol in everything: looks, style, talent, personality. I love to watch all the movies starring Audrey. I have a huge collection of dvd's with her, books with her. I even have a huge book made by her son which features all her life: birth certificate, passport, greeting cards, letters to and from the producers, tickets to the premieres, screenplays, photos - everything that makes you feel you have known Audrey; person, whom I truly admire. 

And if you ask me how many times I have seen Breakfast at Tiffany's, or the Roman Holiday, honestly, I have no idea... million times.

my friend elya

There are different kinds of friends: old friends, new friends, friends you see everyday, friends you miss, friends you lose, friends you find. I want to dedicate this post to my friend Elya. I don't have a special reason, why I want to talk about her now, it's just that this moment I feel I miss her in my life. She lives thousands kilometers away from me in London, and this is the greatest distance we've been apart so far. She is my classmate and has always been there for me. There hasn't been a day that I didn't see her during school, after school we would talk hours and hours and we never seemed to get tired.

The worst feeling in life is the feeling of missing. I had that feeling a lot in my life. I lived in three different countries and I always had someone to miss. But we are friends 4ever, no matter how far we are. Baby, I love you.

the catcher

Today I want to talk about J.D. Salinger and his Catcher in the Rye.

When i was in 8th grade, we had a class you could enroll in and was not from the obligatory programme. It was a fiction literature class. The lecturer that would come and teach us was a writer himself and a very interesting person. He would suggest we read this or that book and then we would discuss. I don't remember all the books we read because of my short memory which leaves me forgetting all the books I read in general. But there is one book, which I remember since then. He told us that it was completely different, unusual and interesting one. I can prove it myself. I read it 20 times or even more. I read it every time I wanted to better up my mood. And every time I understood it in a different way. I used to read it in Russian, but now I have the original English version, which I keep re-reading all the time. I even have underlined some phrases and words, which I love the most, and only looking through them makes me remember everything and laugh from the heart.

I will write down some of them here, so that you read them as well. And will strongly suggest to read this book in English, if you have read it in other language. Because only now I understand it best.

What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by.  I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them.  I hate that.  I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it.  If you don't, you feel even worse.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 1

I don't even know what I was running for - I guess I just felt like it.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 1

It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 1

People always think something's all true.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 2

People never notice anything.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 2

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life.  It's awful.  If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera.  It's terrible.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 3

When I really worry about something, I don't just fool around.  I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something.  Only, I don't go.  I'm too worried to go.  I don't want to interrupt my worrying to go.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 6

All morons hate it when you call them a moron.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 6

In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 9

It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 9

Sex is something I really don't understand too hot.  You never know where the hell you are.  I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away.  Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass.  I broke it, though, the same week I made it - the same night, as a matter of fact.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 9

I was half in love with her by the time we sat down.  That's the thing about girls.  Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.  Girls.  Jesus Christ.  They can drive you crazy.  They really can.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 10

There isn't any night club in the world you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get drunk.  Or unless you're with some girl that really knocks you out.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 10

It's no fun to be yellow.  Maybe I'm not all yellow.  I don't know.  I think maybe I'm just partly yellow and partly the type that doesn't give much of a damn if they lose their gloves.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 13

I mean most girls are so dumb and all.  After you neck them for a while, you can really watch them losing their brains.  You take a girl when she really gets passionate, she just hasn't any brains.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 13

Goddam money.  It always ends up making you blue as hell.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 15

If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?  Nobody.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 17

"Take most people, they're crazy about cars.  They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer.  I don't even like old cars.  I mean they don't even interest me.  I'd rather have a goddam horse.  A horse is at least human, for God's sake."  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 17, spoken by the character Holden Caulfield

Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented.  If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it.  I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 18

Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up.  I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something.  Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery.  People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap.  Who wants flowers when you're dead?  Nobody.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 20

It's funny.  All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 21

Holden:  "You know that song, 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'?..."
Phoebe:  "It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!... It's a poem.  By Robert Burns."
~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 22

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me.  And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 22, spoken by the character Holden Caulfield

"I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall.  But I don't honestly know what kind.... It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college.  Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.'  Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer.  I just don't know."  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 24, spoken by the character Mr. Antolini

"This fall I think you're riding for - it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.  The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom.  He just keeps falling and falling.  The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with.  Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with.  So they gave up looking.  They gave it up before they ever really even got started."  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 24, spoken by the character Mr. Antolini

"Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.  You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know.  Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now.  Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles.  You'll learn from them - if you want to.  Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you.  It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement.  And it isn't education.  It's history.  It's poetry."  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 24, spoken by the character Mr. Antolini

Don't ever tell anybody anything.  If you do, you start missing everybody.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 26

about art

One of my friends told me the other day that a person should try oneself in all kinds of art, maybe one of them is his or her. I have always known that I have no talent in singing. Out of four Georgians three are great singers, I belong to the forth category unfortunately. The talent of acting is something you need to be have from early childhood, but I am still thinking to call into an acting group once I find one. I did some dancing, which I honestly love. Today I decided to try to paint. I know that painting without talent is impossible, but I also know that one can learn to paint, maybe not for the sake of becoming a modigliani, but for the sake of good mood and well-being. Painting calms you down and makes you feel good in general. I will be taking painting courses twice a week, maybe something good comes out of it.

I love impressionists. When I lived in London, I used to go the National Gallery and sit in the hall of impressionists for long hours. My favourite artists is Monet, definitely. While in Amsterdam, I visited Van Gogh's museum, where there was an exhibition of works of Monet I hadn't seen before. One of them: Cap Martin seen from Menton (1884) amazed me. I stood still for half an hour. I would like to share this painting with you, it may inspire you as well.

In Paris, I wanted to buy something from Montmartre. Me and my husband have a serious addiction to paintings, if you could only see one of our rooms, where we keep all the painting we possess, you would realize how big the scale of the addiction is. Having wandered through the rows of painters and paintings, eaten chocolate pancakes to warm us up, then wandered again, I saw two paintings between which I couldn't choose. Both of them showed the views of Parisian buildings in pastel colours and impressionist manner. One of the authors was French, that was the main reason why I chose his painting. After all, I have to buy a French painting from French painter once on Montmartre, a part of which I now possess back home.

♥ roses are red and violets are blue ♥

Valentine's day is the most commercial holiday of all the holidays I know, holiday which I didn't consider to be important at all during all my life. But just as everyone in this world I am influenced by all those ads, romantic movies and traditions. Finally I gave up and decided that it is right to have one day out of 365 when you can legally buy pink-hearted greeting cards and teddy bears, get nice presents and have romantic dinners.

My patience often betrays me, what happened this year as well: I got my present two days before the official love day :) It is hard to wait two days when you know the present is in the second drawer on the leftside of the bed ....

she's the greatest baker

I have to admit, I have never been a great cook. Before I got married I wasn't able to fry an egg (which I still cannot do honestly). But then after watching many cooking shows, I decided I too had a talent. I began cooking, mostly of two ingredients - chicken and mushrooms (the only two things I love to eat). But I hate dinners, and have always hated them. As a child, I was the happiest kid once the dinner was over. What I cannot say about the desserts. That was and will always be my favourite part of the meal. I cook deserts: brownies, cookies, muffins, tarts. After return from Paris not long ago one of my plans was to expand my baking talent on croissants. So I bought a very nice machine: home bakery. It makes dough for everything - pizzas, croissants, dumplings. But it also bakes bread. ...oops, the diet is over in our family. If you see us soon with bigger cheeks and tummies - that is the result of my new home bakery.

And you are most welcome to visit me and taste the wonders of baking technique :)

io parlo italiano

Today was my first Italian lesson. Actually it can't quite be called the first one, since I used to study Italian during my university years. Still with the new teacher and the new city, it was like first to me. I can understand Italian 100%: I understand all the words, and stories, but can't quite talk myself. As my homework I have to learn three pages of a story by Italian author. I have already forgotten how you do the by-heart-learning.

Having finished the lesson, I went for a walk to my home with Jovanotti in my iPod. Serenata rap, serenata metropolitana... It is always nice to feel you are doing something good for self-development

ვატო კახიძე

სიმართლე რომ გითხრათ, ვერ ვიტყვი რომ ყველა სპეკტაკლზე  ვარ ნამყოფი რაც კი არის დადგმული თბილისის თეატრებში. მაგრამ ერთ სპეკტაკლზე ვიყავი უკვე სამჯერ. არა მარტო იმიტომ რომ ეს არის ჩემი საყვარელი ნაწარმოები და იმიტომ რომ ფანტასტიური დადგმაა. კიდევ ერთი უდიდესი მიზეზი ის არის, რომ მე დავდივარ მუსიკის მოსასმენად. მე ვსაუბრობ მარჯანიშვილის სხვენში დადგმულ სპეკტაკლზე 'ქალი ძაღლით'.

ვისაც არ გინახავთ ძალიან გირჩევთ, და ვისაც არ მოგისმენიათ, მითუმეტეს. ეჭვი მაქვს რომ ბევრს არ გექნებათ მოსმენილი რადგანაც ვატო კახიძის სიმღერების მოძიება ადვილი საქმე არ არის. ვისაც გაუმართლა, ეს სიმღერები აქვს სახლში და შეუძლია დატკბეს როცა უნდა. დღეს მეც გამიმართლა და მეც მივიღე საჩუქრად დისკი სანარტელი სიმღერებით. ბოლო ერთი საათი ვზივარ და ვიღიმი.

ერთ სიმღერას თქვენც გაგიზიარებთ, მიუხედავათ იმისა რომ გავრცელება ამიკრძალეს.

01 Track 1.wma

Anne Frank

On my not-long-ago visit to Amsterdam, I fell in love with this city. I called it 'northern Ibiza'. In the streets you can see mostly students and young people with such concentration on one sq.km that it is even hard to walk in the city center, especially during evening-night hours. Well, for that there really is a very unusual reason. But it is not the reason I fell in love with Amsterdam. The reason is its unexplainable beauty. I fell like a doll in a dolltown with dollhouses. The architecture of the city reminds me of old greeting cards or books for little children: you open them and a whole city in carton is in front of you. I took a ride on the canal cruise, did pretty much all the touristic stuff. Went to Van Gogh's and Rembrant's museums, but one touristic place that left a big emotion on me is Anne Frank's house. 

I have read the diary of Anne Frank not long ago. I have tried to read it when I was younger, but I wasn't able to finish it - so hard it was for me. After the book, I saw the movie. After the movie I read a lot about the secret annex and this story gave me many thoughts. Then in Amsterdam the lady on the reception suggested we should go see ..enfranhuis. With her pronunciation it was hard for me to understand what she was suggesting. It was only several streets away from the hotel that I realized that the place still existed and it was possible to see it with my eyes. I won't say that it was the easiest excursion of my life. But 100% it was the most interesting one. Having seen the hiding place by my own and getting to know what happened to those people after they were found was a very difficult thing for me. And the fact that Anne died several weeks before the war was over, was the second shock. After the visit, in every house in Amsterdam I saw the secret annex and imagined how many people suffered from the horrible events of 1940s. Somebody, don't really remember who it was, said that now that we know the story of Anne Frank we have horrible feelings inside. But if we only knew all the stories about all the people who had the same fate as Anne, it would have been impossible for us to live further.

 ps. here is the link to the hiding place in 3d

The Secret Annex Online

Cool Songs in Bossa

Though I have never been to Brazil, I have always felt some hidden passion for this country. For some reason I have never come to learning portuguese, but having listened to a great amount of bossa nova music I always seem to understand what the songs are about. I love old bossa nova, in particular Joao Gilberto, and pretty much all the Gilbertos. I love new interpretations, lounge versions. Some time ago I found a great album 'Cool Songs in Bossa', which features the songs many of you have heard some 10 years ago. 

New interpretation is loungy, nice to have as background while having dinner and just gives a perfect mood.