Face of faces

It's been a while since I last posted, and I still want to post a couple of pictures from our trip to la Costa Brava, but since life doesn't stop just because I stop posting, here is a pretty cool image for you. A face made of faces (among other things). It's Irina's birthday present. It took me 6 years to be able to celebrate her birthday with her, so I wanted to make her something especial.
After collecting all the pictures of, from and by Irina from anywhere I could think of, and spending a couple of hours watching Fernando twick his matlab code, we managed to successfully run his algortihm, which takes a photo of Irina's face and replaces each pixel with one of the pictures in the given directory. The algorithm tries to match pictures to colors in Irina's face, pretty cool! If you've been photographed by Irina, you are probably on her face now :-)

ta, ta

Mi vida

by Stacy Mitchell

"Mi vida" is the name of this amazing acrylic painting that Stacy made for us as a wedding gift, and what a gift!!! We are still bewildered and speechless every time we look at it!

"Mi vida" literally means "my life", but it also means "honey" or "sweetie".

It's already hanging in our bedroom, and we absolutely LOVE it!!!

It's such a special gift, mil gracias Stacy!!!

Florida

Oda a l'Inti

Art representing St. George killing the dragon by Beatrice Anghelache

Vaig deixar enrera el sol inclement dels Andes
Inti, en diuen les llengües antigues,

Carícies verticals, impecables de llum blanca i forta
Sobre els taulats de les casetes amuntegades muntanya amunt,
Sobre velletes arrugades i sense dents,
que venen de lluny, sovint caminant des de la matinada,
per mirar de vendre quatre patates i dos ch’uños,
Sobre els nens d’infancia robada que venen postals o titelles,
netejen sabates o posen amb vestits tradicionals a l’espera d’1 sol
d’algun turista convençut de capturar una trocet d’autenticitat amb la seva càmara.

Carícies contundents que t’estaborneixen i t’escalfen,
pero que tot seguit s'esbaeixen davant del fred fosc i impenetrable de l'ombra i de la nit.

Carícies que malgrat la seva duresa
perduren sobre la pell molt després d’haver deixat el melic del món.

[Translation coming up soon]

gracies!

St. Jordi 2006 (1a edicio dels Jocs Florals a Pittsburgh)

For those of you who don't know, St. Jordi is a very special day in Catalunya, is the cultural version of St. Valentine's, also called the day of the rose and the book.

Legend has it that chevalier St George killed a dragon to save a princess, and from the blood of the dragon, grew a rose tree. St. George gave one rose, the most beautiful one, to the princess. Since then, Catalan men give a red rose to the women they love for St George's day, April 23. At some point, someone also commercialized it as the day of the book, and so for St. Jordi, women started giving a book to the man they love. It's the most beautiful day of the year, everyone is out in the streets, strolling, lovers hand in hand, streets crowded with rose and book stalls... sigh, it's hard to be in exile in moments like this!

But luckily today a bunch of Catalans in exile, as well as friends from Spain and Mexico, came to celebrate this very special day and Sandra even made the "pa de St. Jordi" (St. George's bread)
that you see in the picture, spectacular!!!

Following a very ancient tradition, we also had a poem competition, the first edition of "els Jocs Florals" in Pittsburgh. It was great, and even the Spanish-speaking friends read their poems in Catalan!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arijuan/sets/72057594115218086/

Ah, and Juan won the first prize!

Green

Spring has finally arrived, and between baking cakes and making chocolate eggs, I have finally managed to repot my plants.

Mona de Pascua

There is a first time for everyone. This weekend, it was the first time I made the traditional Catalan cake god parents give their god children for Easter: Mona de Pascua. The most impressive of it all was being able to empty 6 eggs, without destroying them, and fill them with delicious dark chocolate!
Now I am ready to be a god mother :-)
Anyone?

Red

On a happier note, my cute little sister is turning 30 soon (yes, she is not so little any more!), and while I was gathering pictures from her life to make her a photobook as a birthday gift, I came across this awesome picture of when she was tiny and her hair was super RED!!!

Blue

Today it's blue. Yes blue, blue for my dreams of summer and sea, blue because another week of too much thesis and not enough of anything else is ahead of me... and what really makes me bluer than usual, is that Juan is not here to make my week more bearable... so here is blue picture, which at least makes me smile and be a little less blue :-)