Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary

This weeks photo challenge has been a tricky one for me; I had visions of photos of solitary people matched with this stupid inability to actually take them! I don´t know why; but I feel that if I take a picture of someone, even in a public place, that I´m somehow invading their space and privacy. I need to get over this, I truly do, as some of my favourite photos are of people. I love facial expressions, fine lines and wrinkles, eyes, posture, mannerisms, I love it all. To me a photo of a person is beautiful, always, as it captures so much more than just a moment; it captures a life story, especially in older people! So; basically what I´m trying to say is that this week the photo challenge really was a challenge for me, I found myself sifting through my countless albums and failed to come up with anything that truly grabbed my attention.

In the end I settled on a few different shots, five in total. I do like these shots but the quality isn´t the best! I hope you enjoy them, if I do manage to overcome my fear then I will post again during the week! So without further delay, here they are:

Theme one: People.

This was a shot taken in the Sierra Morena one cool and crisp morning last February.
Again, this shot was taken in the Sierra Morena, once the morning fog had lifted!

Theme two: Animals.

This image was taken at Córdoba Zoo.
Again, this was taken at Córdoba Zoo.

Theme three: Bikes.

Taken at the start of summer in Córdoba!

 

So that´s it, for now anyway! Hope you enjoyed my three interpretations of this weeks theme. If I manage to take some more shots, I shall post them during the week!

To see what other bloggers have come up with for this weeks challenge click here.

 What did you think of this weeks theme? Did you have fun with it?

As always, thank you for reading,

Until the next time,

Giana

xoxo

Weekly Photo Challenge: Near and Far.

As I mentioned in my previous post, when it came to this weeks photo challenge my imagination ran wild, making it very difficult to choose what the best option was. In the end I decided to do not just one post but three, a little cheeky of me I know but making decisions has never been my strong point! Anyway, moving on, welcome to Photo Challenge number two: Finestrat, Spain. I hope you enjoy!

Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
Khalil Gibran

An image of Puig Campana at street level. So near you can almost touch it yet far enough to remain mysterious!
Another image of Puig Campana from one of the enchanting streets in Finestrat.
A beautiful image of Puig Campana taken amoung the leaves!

This week I was lucky enough to visit the village Finestrat. Finestrat is a beautiful traditional village which seems to have the best of both worlds: the mountains and the beach. This picturesque village hugs the Puig Campana, a majestic rock, which happens to be one of the most emblematic points on the Costa Blanca. Not only does this mountainous village boast spectacular views of the surrounding countryside but it also has its own beach, situated some five minutes from the village itself. Getting excited yet? I hope so! Check out the rest of the views from this village by clicking here.

To see what other bloggers have come up with for this weeks challenge click here.

Have you ever been to Finestrat? What did you think?

As always, thank you for reading,

Until the next time,

Giana

xoxo

Come walk with me: Córdoba

So as you may know, if you are a regular reader of my blog, I have been living in Cordoba for over a year now. It seems crazy to me that it´s been that long already. To me it feels like it was only yesterday that I stepped out of my parents car into the enchanting furnace that I now call home! I say furnace as last friday the weather dials that are dotted around the city recorded a high of 55ºC, how much faith I have in those dials I cannot say but I can tell you this; it felt like I was cooking as I ventured out to my local shop for supplies! No wonder my furry visitor decided to pop by, my lovely air-conditioned apartment would be a dream to any creature in this heat!

Anyway, the point of this blog – sorry my ramblings always seem to get in the way, what can I say? I love to ramble – is to show you some of the sights I walk past on a daily basis, basically to take you on a walk through the city with me! I had planned to do this in June as a way of celebrating my one year anniversary here but, as you know from my previous posts, life got in the way! So I´ve decided that today, being a holiday, is a perfect day to go for a walk around my city with you. So put on your most comfortable walking shoes, grab some water and let´s go!

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I hope that through this slideshow you can get a feel for the incredible city I live in. Obviously I have left out lots of beautiful streets and places, if I included everything then what would I have to write about in the future?

Anyway, enough procrastination, time to make myself a cup of tea and tackle the big pile of corrections that is staring at me ever so daringly from my kitchen table!

Hope you´re having a great day wherever you are!

As always, thank you for reading, until the next time…

Giana xoxo

My weekend according to Fhotoroom!

I must admit I was starting to feel a little left out of the instagram loop. Having a windows phone means that the application that is taking over the multimedia world was just out of my reach and this was heartbreaking to me. I´m a little on the obsessive side when it comes to taking photos, and photo technology in general, therefore you can imagine how disappointed I was when instagram was not available to me. Never one to let things get the better of me I decided to do some research and see what photo technology was available to me and my baby, my windows phone!

After sifting through the abundant information there is out there on this topic I settled on the humble application known to the world as Fhotoroom. According to my research Fotoroom is an application that is available to windows phone users, for free, for a limited period of time. According to researchers it is the next best thing to instagram containing many similar features. I have no idea what features are available on instagram, I´ve never used it, but I must say I´m quite impressed with my latest novelty download and decided to make the most of this feature this weekend! I´ll let you be the judge and let me know what you think, is the quality of the photos just as good?

Image thanks to google, click on it to take you to the original page!

Enough technical jargon, time to talk about my weekend! As I had mentioned in my previous post life has been a little on the busy side with work and I was starting to feel a little on the drained side. I was so excited for the weekend to roll around to catch up on my sleep and to spend some much-needed quality time with one of the most important people in my life: me!

Friday started off like a dream, not waking up until well after one o´clock was a welcome change to my now habitual six o´clock mornings. I awoke refreshed and relaxed and decided to make to most of my relaxed mood and stay in for the day and catch up with my reading, both of blogs I enjoy and a book I´ve been trying to read for a while now, perfect day I thought…O how wrong was I?!

I was gradually getting lost in my book and feeling myself unwind for the first time in ages, felt like the day was such a welcome break from my daily routine when disaster stuck! O how do I even break this to you…right time to be brave Giana, you can do this, deep breath…O.K I´m ready. Here I go…brace yourselves this is a biggy..I went into the bathroom, as you do after drinking several litters of water earlier that day, and sat myself down on the toilet, I looked up and there, hanging from the wire of my light fitting, all bold and proud was….wait for it…a mouse! I quickly pulled up my shorts, while screaming my lungs out, and ran from my apartment! Now I realise that mice are small, that mice are harmless, that mice are probably more afraid of humans than we are of them but…quite frankly… this means absolutely nothing to me. Ever since I was little mice and rats have been one of my biggest fears, snakes fine, lizards bring them on but mice: no, no keep them away from me!

I had been saying to my friends and family for ages that I was convinced that there were mice in the hollow space between my bathroom ceiling and the roof of the building as I had been hearing noises at night-time but after a while I convinced myself that I was just being paranoid because of my fear…o how I wish it had only been paranoia! Anyway, to cut a long story short, I rang one of my friends, for this post he shall be called my knight in shining armor, and he came to my rescue! He opened my apartment up checked it throughly and it appears as though my ever so feminine screaming did the trick and scared the mouse enough to send it back to where it came from, well, for now anyway! So after searching the place and then blocking the hole which exists where my light fitting is, to ensure that no more mice would be paying me a visit, my knight in shining armor and I met up with some of his family and had a much-needed beer to relax ourselves!

So much for a relaxing Friday! So as you can imagine, my fear of mice being as big as it is, sleeping with the light on was my only option on Friday night! Something I haven´t done in years, not since my last experience with a mouse in the house in university, I´d forgotten just how hard it is to sleep with the light on but thankfully, due to sheer exhaustion, I eventually drifted off! Touch wood since then there hasn´t been a peep from the ceiling, I think I terrified the nasty creature with the power of my vocal chords haha Nonetheless I´m ringing my landlady first chance I get tomorrow to get someone to come check it out!

Anyway enough about my new furry visitor and on to the good parts of my weekend! I woke up Saturday morning feeling a little more relaxing than the previous evening but flashbacks of the mouse incident prevented me from being able to stay indoors for the day so I ventured out for a spot of breakfast with a friend followed by a lovely trip to the pool with my lovely book! Perfect!

Pool Time
Pool Time

The evening was followed by a little nap, some take away, a quick tidy up of the apartment (I feel after the mouse’s visit the apartment can never be too clean now haha) and some cheesy dvds, such a drama free evening, just how I like them!

Today was equally as relaxing, I woke up late, caught up on some blogs and emails then went on a lazy walk through the streets of Córdoba via work, as I had to do some planning for tomorrow. On my walk home I decided to go through this little park that´s close to where I live, it´s a beautiful park filled with graffiti and lots of personality! So I paused for a moment to soak it in and take some photos to share with you all!

Park Time
Graffiti
Graffiti Time
Graffiti Time

So that´s pretty much it for my weekend. I had planned an uneventful relaxing weekend and, apart from the mouse episode, that´s exactly what I got! Now time to go get my dinner and get ready for work tomorrow! Hope you´ve had a fantastic weekend, wherever you are!

Through the streets

As always, thank you for reading, until the next time

Giana xoxo