Merry Christmas

Live from Porto, in Portugal, I wish all the all my friends and occasional visitors a great happy season! ;-)

Another Christmas goes by, with family, a full table and lots of good humour :-) And don't complaint if you didn't get the gift from your wish list... there are worse things in life! ahah

See you next Christmas (if we don't take into account the end of the world! ahahah)

Happy Holidays from Porto

I interrupt my unusual blog posts to wish my friends and readers Merry Christmas!

I leave you with this postcard from the best city in world. As you can see, even Santa Claus loves this! ;-)

Merry Christmas!

Live from the best city of the world, I wish you all blah, blah, blah, blah and happy christmas!

The city is quiet this morning, everyone is still sleeping and resting after celebrating christmas' eve.
So I've decided to take my camera and walk around town on this cold Christmas morning.

And, in case you still don't know, the best city of the world is Porto ;-)

Ho, ho, ho!

ps: do you know why Santa Claus says "ho, ho, ho!" and pirates say "yo, ho, ho!"? Me neither!

Ho ho ho

And here we are again, with another cliché on this special day. Yes, it's Christmas... what a surprise!
I would prefer to win the lottery and wish congratulations to myself, but on Christmas we have to wish all the best to our family, friends and ... all the others (yes, those who are "special" like politicians or terrorists... they're people too, they only need to be loved! eheheh).

I hope you enjoy another Christmas Eve with the ones you love (yes, like Angelina Jolie.... I wish! eheh), and with the presents you deserve... after all, there's a crisis out there!

Ho ho ho ... and a bottle of rum! Did you ever notice that pirates and Santa Claus have a similar cheer? :-D

Next stop: Porto

Every year it arrives that special time when people join their families in their homelands. Some of them more far than others.
I'm lucky because I'm only 2 hours away by plane, so I don't have no excuses to skip Christmas with my family! eheh

So my next stop will be the world's most beautiful city: Porto (or Oporto, if you're english! eheh). This award was given after a competing voting selection, and it was up the jury to decide... that means me! :-P

I'll try to take this opportunity to show you my city. The monuments, the iconic buildings, the food, and the most important and best part of Porto: the people :-)

Now let me get ready for real cold! eheh It's true Paris is cold in winter, but it's a dry weather. In Porto the temperature also drops, but there are some nasty winds coming from the Atlantic ocean.
I'm getting a cold just thinking of it! eheheh

Christmas lights in the lightless avenue

It's not Christmas yet but, like most other cities, Paris is already "dressed up" for the next holiday season.
That time of the year when people are naturally happy, everyone tries to make a good action and share.

These images were taken at Champs-Élysées, the famous avenue in the City of Lights. If this avenue was once filled with glamour, now has its reputation going lower and lower.
Paris is worldwide known for its beauty and for the parisians' bad reputation.
This week it was published a survey of the most prestigious shopping streets in the world, and les Champs were ranked last out of sixteen famous names.
Main reason? Shop assistants and poor service at the main boutiques... oh yes, and the entire avenue isn't as clean as it should be.

But there is one good explanation regarding garbage: simply because there aren't trash cans! :-D
In 1995 there was a serie of terrorist bombings and most of the bombs were hidden in garbage cans. In order to avoid problems in the future, authorities removed the cans.
Regarding the parisians' "politeness"... well, there's no explanation for that! eheheh

But soon will be Christmas again, and people's hearts will be warm, happy and fill with joy... even for the parisians ;-)