MERRY CHRISTMAS

May God's blessings come to you a thousand fold;

may the love in your heart never get old;

and may you find treasures more precious than gold.

 

Have a blessed Christmas

and a happy new year

to you and your family!

Cafe New York in Budapest

Let’s go to Cafe New York...

The four-floor New York Palace was built in 1894

in eclectic style by a New York-based life insurance company: of course, not as a palace but as an elegant office complex. (opened by Sándor Steuer a member of a famous coffee-family

The cafe became one of the most popular iconic cafés

of fin-de-siécle Budapest, especially amongst

Budapest literati: writers frequented the café for its inspirational atmosphere and company as well as for good coffees and meals. Can you imagine that there were 400 different journals and papers in the café to read at the turn of the 20th century?

 “Indeed, this is where Sir Alexander Korda – director of films such as The Private Life of Henry VIII & The Thief of Baghdad - started out for his world award winning career, just as Michael Curtis, Oscar winning director of Casablanca did too,” according to the hotel’s official website.

 

In 1945 the palace was bombarded, the café had to close down in 1947 and was turned into a warehouse. What a beautiful warehouse it must have been…. It opened again in 1954 renamed as ‘Hungaria’ (New York was too capitalist for the then communist Hungary, and it was not a café any more just a buffet and restaurant).

From Spring 2006 the New York Café welcomes
its guestsin all it's former splendour recalling
the milieu of the beginning of the 20th century

For your coffee, I suggest trying the Tiramisu in real
Italian style,
 or just sipping a glass of Tokaj aszú –
according to totally
unscientific studies it helps to feel
the grandeur of the café...

ENJOY!!

stepping into a new week

Happy Monday my friends!

may this week find your steps..
{whatever kind of shoes you happen to be wearing}  
graced with patience. courage.
and, lots of opportunities to just sit back and smile...

{stepping into a new week}

Happy new week...

Happy Monday lovelies!
The weather  here is soooo cold,
we have a new blanket of snow.  
My weekend consisted of lots of
cups of tea with a lemon.
I spent yesterday most of time
in bed to be ready for the busy week ahead.

 I hope all of you had a lovely relaxing weekend...

~♥ ♥~

Christmas Markets in Vienna

Romantic Festive Season in Vienna

you should experience the beautiful Christmas

Markets in Vienna and let yourself

be enchanted by the fabulous locations

of the Christmas Markets in the Austrian capital.

The Christmas Markets at the Vienna Rathausplatz

and in front of Schoenbrunn Palace

or Belvedere are the Christmas highlights

 in Vienna. Here romance, nostalgia and

fairytale landscapes await you.

ADVENT IN VIENNA

A PALE BLUE DOT

Pale Blue Dot
Carl Sagan

Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home,

that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know,

 everyone you ever heard of, every human being

who ever was, lived out their lives.

The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands

of confident religions, ideologies,

and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager,

every hero and coward, every creator and

destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant,

every young couple in love, every mother and father,

hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every

teacher of morals, every corrupt politician,

every "superstar," every "supreme leader,"

every saint and sinner in the history of our species

lived there

– on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam –

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those

generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph,

they could become the momentary masters

of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties

visited by the inhabitants of one corner of

this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable

inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent

their misunderstandings, how eager they are

to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance,

the delusion that we have some privileged

position in the Universe, are challenged by this point

of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great

enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity,

in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will

come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life.

There is nowhere else, at least in the near future,

to which our species could migrate.

Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the

moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling

and character-building experience.

There is perhaps no better demonstration

of the folly of human conceits than this distant

image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores

our responsibility to deal more kindly

with one another, and to preserve and

cherish the pale blue dot,

the only home we've ever known.

MUSIC

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. 

 ~Berthold Auerbach ~

The dust of our life can come in waves and when we feel most venerable. Those dust clouds can whip up and even knock us over. Music can wash through our soul and keep our vision clear to see the things in life that are the most precious. We are reminded of love’s ideal through a love song and maybe we can give a loved one a chance to try again.

Another song helps us feel through our disappointment and sadness. Still another transports us to a memory, still and quiet. And music is there to help us feel our happiest. We celebrate with music washing through our soul and feeling the ‘high’ that life has to offer. After all, we all have a soundtrack! Embrace it and discover more of your soul.

MARIAZELL

Mariazell,

 Styria, town in the district of Bruck an der Mur, Austria, place of pilgrimage, tourist resort and winter sports resort situated on a hill on the upper reaches of the River Salza, near the Lower Austrian border and Lake Erlaufsee.

Mariazell started as a settlement set up beside a small monastery (Latin "cella") which was founded

by Benedictine monks of the monastery of St. Lambrecht

in the middle of the 12^th century (probably in 1157).

It is said that the area was dedicated to a monastery

in 1103.

The monk Magnus was looking for a place to build his monastery and found his way blocked by a huge boulder. He set a wooden statue of Mother Mary on the boulder,and  prayed. Soon there was a great rumble

and the rock split in two, allowing him to pass through.

Magnus placed the statue reverently on a white branch and soon after, he and some of the local people built a small chapel to house the statue. Word of the miraculous statue of the Virgin quickly spread across the countryside, and the chapel had to be periodically expanded to accommodate the growing crowds.

Around 1480 pilgrims from16 different countries came

to Mariazell. The majority of pilgrims who visited Mariazell came from the Habsburg lands and the regions of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy...

The Mariazell region, it is the magic and tranquility of Advent that rise to the occassion for weekends in December with authentic Christmas customs.

Let's go to Mariazell.  Bring money with you for the outdoor shops in front of the Church. You can find yourself in colorful swirl, where the common effect  of sounds, scents, view takes people to a glorious heaven.

Make your day a Lucky one!

Who doesn’t want to be happy?

Just take a look at any moment of your life,

any choice you make.

Isn’t your intention to be happy?

By happiness,

I mean  a deep sense of contentment,

the capability of being peaceful

and at ease no matter what,

an inner knowing that things are just fine.

Somehow true happiness eludes us,

and here’s why. Even though we long

for it more than anything,

we make choices that derail us.

We choose stressful behaviors,

distorted beliefs through which

we view the world, and emotional chaos.

And in doing so, we interfere

with our potential to be happy.

Happiness is absolutely within your reach.

In fact, it closer than close – the essence of you.

Try to control your thoughts and emotions.

See what makes you unhappy,

then plant your feet firmly in the land

of happiness and the deepest happiness

imaginable will be revealed.

“The amount of happiness that you have

depends on the amount of freedom

you have in your heart.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~

Use of Light in Photography – PictureCorrect

NATURAL LIGHT IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Paying more attention to light is perhaps the single most important step you can take to improve your photography. With many landscapes, having good natural lighting can even be more important than the choice of subject itself. Different types of natural light can also produce a wide variety of subject appearances — even though these all have the same light source.  How to achieve the right light for your subject by utilizing the unique qualities of your particular time of day and weather is a question of your skills....


Evening Light During Stormy Skies:

The Light of Morning at Sunrise:

More : http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/natural-light-photography.htm

Happy weekend

May be

Mark Twain, New Hampshire 1905 

MAY BE

Maybe . . we  were supposed to meet the

wrong people before meeting the right

one so that, when we finally meet the

right person, we will know how to be

grateful for that gift.

Maybe . .  it is true that we don't
know what we have until we lose it,
but it is also true that we don't know
what we have been missing until it
arrives.


Maybe . .  the brightest future will
always be based on a forgotten past;
after all, you can't go on
successfully in life until you let go
of your past mistakes, failures and
heartaches.

Maybe . . you should hope for enough
happiness to make you sweet, enough
trials to make you strong, enough
sorrow to keep you human, and enough
hope to make you happy.

Maybe . .  the happiest of people
don't necessarily have the best of
everything; they just make the most of
everything that comes along their way.

Maybe . .  the best kind of friend is
the kind you can sit on a porch and
swing with, never say a word, and then
walk away feeling like it was the best
conversation you've ever had.

 

The butterflies in the stomach

 "I can't tell you what it is,

but it's the best thing I've found
The butterflies in my stomach

and my feet off the ground..."

Dave Barnes

Isn't it funny  how you can still

get butterflies in your stomach,

even though you have known

the person for years...

You know the feeling, that “fluttery” or “tickling” sense you get in your stomach? You feel your digestion shut down, your heart and breathing rate goes up as well as your blood pressure. You feel a huge fluctuation of cortisol, adrenaline and other hormones in your system.

Physiologically speaking, it’s your body’s fight or flight response to a sense of love, excitement or even nervousness. No one really swallows butterflies whole. There is an elevation in sympathetic activity in the autonomic nervous system. Physically you’re aroused because you perceive a potential threat or challenging situation and your brain increases that level of arousal to meet the challenge.

It kicks in whenever you run into or see that person you like and frankly it’s normal to feel nervous. We even tend to do or blurt out stupid things in the process and that’s still okay, it’s something we can look back on one day. So, be nervous and take in that butterfly experience, sometimes we all need it every once in awhile to remind us what’s worth living for.

Never ignore a person who loves you

Never ignore a person that loves you, cares for you, and misses you.

Because one day, you might wake up from your sleep and realize that you lost the moon while counting stars

- Unknown

When someone walks out of your life, let them. There’s no use in wasting your time on people that leave you. What you make of yourself and your future is no longer tied to them. Yeah, you may miss them, but remember that you weren’t the first one to give up. 

°

A person who loves you is like a moon, he lives and shines only to look after, take care and love you by all his heart. But the habit of human beings is to love someone who is inaccessible for us. But one day we realize that we’ve lost a person who really deserved our love.

“The things we like and dislike change. And we could wish all day long that they didn’t, but they always will.”

HAPPINESS

There is no one who is happy all the time and it is impossible to make every one feel happy. Different people have different ideas of happiness. Some may imagine an ideal life and they believe that that is a happy life. I think no one even person, whose dream will come true, can not be happy for a lifetime. 

People’s emotions are changing. It is normal that sometimes we feel happy and sometimes not.  A flower or a word may make us feel happy, although probably just for a while. Hence, happiness is not necessarily connected with the material world; it is rather a product of spiritual or psychological world. Then, happy is just a “small part of one’s life.” it is just a moment, not a lifelong time.

Anyway it is the best thing when we have happy moments very often in our life ...

Welcome to Kazimierz

Kazimierz, the heart of Jewish Krakow,

is now a thriving district, a mixture of cultural festivals,

café culture, antique shops, art galleries, restaurants and bars, a place to watch the world go by over a coffee or to catch up with friends.

However, it would be wrong to talk about Kazimierz merely in those terms, for any visitor, regardless of nationality or religious persuasion, it's worth pointing out that Kazimierz's history spans centuries. It was originally established in 1335 and named after its founder, King Kazimierz Wielki (Casimir the Great), who intended it to rival the established city of Krakow.

It remains one of the most culturally significant Jewish areas in the world. In 1495, the Jews who were expelled from Krakow settled here, and Kazimierz became a mixture of Christian and Jewish culture.

During the war the Nazis did all they could to destroy and ruin Kazimierz. After the war, decades of communist neglect left Kazimierz a crumbling ruin. It became a dark and dangerous place, a district to be avoided after nightfall.

With communism's fall, Kazimierz has changed beyond all recognition. As well as the aforementioned art galleries and cafés, buildings have been renovated and museums opened. There has also been a reawakening in the importance of Jewish history and culture in Poland, for instance, the Jewish Culture Festival which takes place every year attracts thousands of visitors, both Jews and non-Jews alike.

Perhaps one of the most important factors in Kazimierz's renewal was Steven Spielberg's film, Schindler's List, which was filmed here and which generated intense interest in the area.

With its beguiling streets, unforgettable and unique atmosphere, synagogues and museums, as well as its cafés, bars and art galleries, Kazimierz is a place that anyone who comes to Krakow must visit.

GOYARD

The hightly desirable, illusive tote

at the moment has been claimed

by the famous luxury designer

Maison Goyard, a 144 year

Parisian luggage and handbag maker. 

Sightings of this bag are rare. 

In 1997 a fashion entrepreneur,

Jean Michel Signoles,

bought the established and

at the time antiquated brand

and brought it back to life. 

With a few pops of color to

Goyard's signature pieces,

Jean Michel managed to revamp

Goyard's stodgy image

into a relatable chic luxury

for the modern woman.   

Goyard's marketing strategy,

however remains conservative

and traditional in the sense

of their determined focus

on prestige and exclusivity. 

Oh  dear Santa Claus, 

when not Chanel  iconic bag ,

then this one...please...