The rain in Spain....

* Wimbledon final *





No rain will spoil the mood of the Spaniards this time. The Spanish Prince of Clay - Rafael Nadal - dethrones a King - Roger Federer - in the Wimbledon 2008 final. And what an epic match it was, all 4 hours and 48 minutes of it. A first for the Spaniard, another feather on the cap for Spain after their Euro 2008 win. A deserving victory after decades of despair.

* Running Of The Bulls - San Fermin Festival *











The Running Of The Bulls - San Fermin Festival in Pamplona, Spain is another reason for a celebration. My Spanish relatives are going crazy with all the festivities. I envy them. But I don't fancy being trampled on by crazed bulls and a drunken crowd.

I love Paris

I love Paris. The city. Not the Hilton heiress. I could live in Paris forever, taking in the sights, the sounds, the culture, the arts, the very essence of it. It's not the cheapest city to live in, but hey, I can afford it. Maybe I'd better stick around the city for awhile.  

Nightwalking

I haven't been sleeping well for these past 3 days. In total, I think I slept 8 1/2 hours. It's raining right now and it's making me more moody than usual. Guess I have to skip my moonlight walk tonight. There is this park which I love to walk around, even dead at night.

I love the gnarly trees, the manicured hedges, the ornate streetlights, the very atmosphere of it. It's perfectly safe to be at, as I live in a secured, upper-middle class area. My neighbours are fully aware of this eccentric nocturnal habit of mine. They don't trust me 100%, not yet anyway, but then again, who else would volunteer to keep an eye on the neighbourhood for them dead at night? Who else is capable of defending himself? And who else is just as reckless as I am?  

In the heat of the night, where humans, starved of vision, open up their other senses to 'see' better. By night, the neighbourhood breathe and exhale in tandem. Everything seems different in ghostly monochrome, that is after your night sight develop after half an hour. In the absence of light, it felt like a total reversal of civilization, taking me - for the moment - back in medieval times.

How To Find A Vampire

^ Lestat the Vampire enjoying his dessert

1. To find if a vampire is living in a particular cemetery, first choose a child young enough to be a virgin. Seat the child on a virgin horse of a solid color that has never stumbled. Lead the horse through the cemetery, passing over all the graves. If the horse refuses to pass over a particular grave, a vampire is lying there.

2. At night in a cemetery, look for a bluish flame glowing above a vampire’s grave. This blue glow represents the vampire's soul.

3. Also in the cemetery, look for graves with holes in them, or graves sporting crooked crosses or tombstones. This is vampire territory.

4. Ask someone who was born on Saturday to check out anyone you are wondering about. People born on this day of the week can tell vampires just by looking at them.

5. Dig up the body of the suspected vampire and check for suspicious lack of decay, bloodstains around the mouth, open eyes, or extra long finger nails.

6. Be suspicious who wears only black, looks literally as if he has never seen the sun and refuses to eat garlic.

Got milk? - Weird milk superstitions

Milk often symbolizes fertility and purity. But when folklore, traditions and imagination intersect, the results are weird superstitions :
* Moroccan women take a milk bath to purify themselves before their wedding ceremony.
* According to the Filipino people, a pink eye can be cured with breast milk.
* In many parts of Europe the spilling of milk was actually thought to be good luck as it provided food for the good fairies that scurried about on the ground.
* In America, some elders believe that spilled milk will attract evil spirits and bring seven days of bad luck.
* In Africa, there is a superstition that fire kindled by a flash of lightning cannot be extinguished until a small quantity of milk has been poured over it.
* In the writings of Kabbalah, milk symbolizes compassion.
* Among some Hindus, spilled milk is considered a bad omen, a belief dating back to the Ramayana, when one of the maids knocked over a vessel of milk the day Lord Rama went into forced exile.
* In the agricultural area :
   * Stepping in a milk bucket or spilling milk would dry up your cows.
   * The first milk a new cow produced was put in a bronze bowl to make sure the cow continued to provide lots of milk.
   * Hairs were pulled from the tail of a cow after it was sold, to make sure the cow remained a good milker.
   * Milk was sold with a pinch of salt added to it so that the cow that produced it would not be bewitched.
   * Milking a cow before being send to a market brings bad luck.