Birthday party

Me loves flowers
Since there was no way that I didn’t celebrate my birthday, I decided to bring few people to “Cleopatra” Lebanese restaurant. We’ve had an excellent dinner. There was some cultural program on behalf of the restaurant too. Balley dancer was again (as with Olga’s birthday last year) very enthusiastic and professional. I’ve made a bunch of pictures, but due to darkness I had to use manual mode with manual focus, which I am not sure was very good after all that wine. I will publish the pictures shortly, but don’t be too excited.

After the restaurant we ended up at Hazard’s place drinking some more wine and watching a movie.

Hazard’s birthday party

Fresh air is excellent by itself. But its few hundred times better when enjoyed in a company of friends with a lot of beer and barbeque. That’s precisely what I was doing for most of the day today – celebrating Vladimir’s birthday in the mountains. It seems that spring is here and summer is enclosing…

Limassol Beer Festival

Work…work…work. Last day of work for this week, though :)

After the work, I’ve picked up Lev, Hazard and headed home for Olga. Then, all together we went to Germania restaraunt for some real good food and real good beer. Places like this are empty these days, due to so called “Beer Festival”.

Now, let me tell you something about beer festival in Limassol, Cyprus. First of all, Cyprus has nothing to do with beer. It’s a wine place. To prove this, Limassol hosts wine festival every year for last 20 or 30 years. And it’s kind of cool – all wine makers present themselves in one place. By “all wine makers” I mean really ALL wine makers – from individuals to factories. And all of them gather in one place. You pay a pound or two for the ticket and you can enjoy all the wine you can. This is, though, very different from the beer festival. Originally, there was no beer festival in Limassol. Niether was any in Cyprus. But, there happened to be one successful bar, called “Chesters“, and you know it, if you’ve been on these pages at least once. I am a regular there. Anyway… The owner of that bar decided that it would be nice to start a good tradition for beer lovers. So, he started hosting “Chesters’ Beer Festival” every year right in front of his bar. Many beer importers were putting their tents around the place, live music was playing and hot dogs were cooking. Anyone who thought they were missing something, could pretend to be vising the bar and just going in for a good old whisky or something. So it was for three or four years aucasinosonline. Then, Limassol municipality decided that most of the city is missing it, and that it would be good to have some extra money instead of giving it some rich guy who already has a proper bar, so they started their own festival. I knew from the very beginning that it will suck, so I didn’t go. But Lev did. And his impressions were much worse then what I was expecting – no draught beer, no Carlsberg, no food, no proper sound. Rap music mixed with greek traditional music, announced by DJ for small, but expensive bottles of beer. Everyone ended up in the brewery, which is nex to the festival place.

So, since everyone was on a festival, we had a great time in empty German restaraunt. Then we went to Hazard’s place for some more beer and a movie. It took Hazard some time to reconfigure his Nvidia to spit things out to the TV, since his last upgrade, so we had a pleasent game of chess with Lev on my newly aquired Sony Ericsson P800. :)

After Hazard managed to bring the vision back, we watched “The Animatrix“, which was good, but boring enough to not stop me from falling asleep right in the middle of it. Give me a credit – I hate Japanese animation, so I was very strong to stay until the middle. Though it was exactly Japanese, but it was very close. :)

By the good old tradition, after falling asleep at Hazard’s place, I get home and continue sleeping there… :)

WRC – Day 3

Last day of rally. We’ve planned to see only one stage today. It was very close to Limassol and they even had a bus to take people from the parking to the finish line. We’ve covered half the way by car and another half by foot. Good spot that was – medium right turn and long and fast straigt road downhill, then sharp left and straight to finish. I’ve made few nice pictures again, but Vladimir still cannot find the cable to read them off the camera.

After the stage we went to Molos area in Limassol to see the official prize-giving ceremony. We’ve got somewhat separated due to me parking the car for a long time, but finally I got the best spot of all immidiately near to podium. My favorite team of blue and yellow won, which resulted in much victorius shouting and whistling from my side. Subaru (with Solberg and Mills) are the CHAMPIONS!

WRC – Day 2

Action day! In the morning we went to the mountains (Kato Platres area) to watch the first of two planned rally stages (SS9). Nice place, but we didn’t have the best spot – crowded. Cars were coming fast straight downhill, where they had a 180 degrees turn right then a short and fast downhill again, where they turned about 120 degrees left and went through a small river. Stage description was boasting a bridge, but none could be seen. Subaru looked best of all with Solberg almost overturning the car. There was also a change from tarmac to gravel on that 180 degree turn. Anyway, we’ve watched most of the cars. There were few Finnish spectators with the flag and everything, so we joined them and had some beer together. Nice people.

After this stage we went up to Platres to have some food in Psilo Dentro, which is a nice restaraunt with the Trout Farm. I had a pork chop as usual, though.

Filled and refilled we went down to the highway and drove to Paphos fast to see the second planned stage (SS12). This was marvelous! Fast track along the almost dried river with water crossing in three places. Lots of stones on the road. After a somewhat longish walk we were standing in about 10 meters from the water, which was frequently speed crossed by rally cars. Again, Subaru was the most impressive here! Hyndai cars were looking not bad, also.

On the way back, we watched one crazy spectator driving and jumping around and killing his Renegade jeep. He managed to destroy the car effectively and quickly. Idiots are everywhere…