The Manchester Diaries: Episode 2. On my way to the Northern Quarter

Took my time to make my own drawing of the Town Hall :P

A view of Princess St.

A backstreet near Chinatown

Chinatown

Chinatown

Chinatown

Chinatown

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A view of Picadilly Gardens

Portland St ? (sorry, can't seem to remember)

Last Saturday I went out in the morning and spent at least seven hours wandering around the city. 

Its colours, textures and structures seem so gorgeous to me...I find a contemporary artwork wherever I look at. Here you have some of the pics I captured in my way to the city centre (this time I took an alternative route). My aim was to arrive to a photograph exhibition at Lever St. I never arrived, though. I mean, I arrived to the street, but got unavoidably stuck in the Northern Quarter. 

However, you'd have to wait a little more for those pics... ;)

More sights of Valencia

Sight of El Carmen neighbourhood

Sight of El Carmen neighbourhood

Sight of the El Carmen church tower

A picture in the restaurant Canela, where we were having a super nice lunch!!

San Valero church at Ruzafa neighbourhood

Easter has passed by without noticing, and I cannot tell what have I exactly been doing. I suppose that kind of feeling is the one you have when you are learning to live in a new place, and not only visiting it. Anyway, I have had the time to come back to places where I had already been, and also to know some new areas of the city, as El Carmen (with the exceptional guidance and hospitality of Beatriz, my host here), including a visit to the IVAM where an exhibition of contemporary aboriginal art was being held!! 

I inmediately remembered Liz (my Australian English teacher): if she'd have been there not only she'd have loved it, but also she'd probably have been able to explain all that stuff to us!!
Here you have some pics. I hope you'll like them!!  

Diseño al cubo

During my first contact with Valencia City I had time enough for a quite long walk around my prospective new neighbourhood and I realized I was on the real melting point of fashion and leisure. I found some alternative locals which were actually art galleries where you could have a delightful cup of whatever...
However, I specially loved a place called Diseño al Cubo, which was not a pub but an art and design gallery where creators of all sorts of beautiful things (from crafts to paintings, including catchpenny, bags made of recicled tins, clothes, etc) could expose and sell their work. Each creator is given a cube (I mean: a cubic space in a shelf) to show its production for a month. Then, the cubes must be delivered to new artists coming. In addition, they have a central space where they install the main gallery show. Each new show is celebrated with an opening ceremony which seems to attract a pretty good amount of interesting people around. You can see some images and learn more about this iniciative in www.disenoalcubo.com.
Finally, I'd like to show you the skull bracelet I bought: it was made by a girl called Patricia Fontes, whose brand name is Nipatinipami (Mediterranean Catchpenny). I kind of like the feeling of knowing who has created something I'm wearing...

Hope you all have had a pretty good monday: mine has been quite long but finally I could accomplish an amount of things to do before definitely leaving in a couple of days...
I promise to report all my new discoverings!!

Eyes wide shut

It's been a week to come back to work. To relearn to say good bye to my free time. I'm aware how easy it is for me to come back to this way of living again, how habituated I am to put my attention on external objects and tasks, forgetting my personal needs.

It's like this picture, a present of a painter friend, Helio Gogar. I think it's unfair that so few people had the opportunity to enjoy it until now. It makes me reflect. That's the reason why I'd like to share it with you all: so that she ceases to be so alone and absent, so that her eyes are no longer so empty, so distant from her own beauty.