miercuri, 14 octombrie 2009
marți, 5 mai 2009
The second largest Romanian city, Iaşi is the economic, cultural and academic centre of the Romanian region of Moldavia.
The city has the oldest Romanian university and accommodates an annual count of over 70,000 students in 5 public and 3 private universities. It is home to more than 50 churches and hosts 5 cultural centres: British, French, German, Latin American & Caribbean and Hellenic. Cultural life gravitates around the National Theater (the oldest in Romania), the Opera House, the Iaşi State Philarmonic, the Tătăraşi Atheneum, a famous Botanical Garden (the oldest and largest in Romania), the Central University Library (the oldest in Romania), an array of museums and memorial houses, an independent theater and several student organizations.
Hirlau played a very special role in the agitated history of medieval Moldova. The first documentary attestation about Hirlau is bind to the Court of Lady Margareta Musat (the mother of the leader Petru I Musat) that was set here on the 1st of May 1384. Its importance grew during the leadership of Stefan cel Mare, who rebuilt the court of the princely palace in 1486 and six years later, he added an architectural jewel: the Saint George Church - the first monument with a great scenery painted outside.
On the 12th of July 1499, Stefan cel Mare signed the Peace Treaty with the king Ioan Albert of Poland in Hirlau, fact that proves both the leader's victory on the battle fields, and the town development. Petru Rares was proclaimed by Stefan cel mare as the leader of Hirlau.
During Radu Mihnea's leadership Hirlau became princely residence and was the place where the leader died, in January 1626.
After this age of glory, Hirlau slowly begun to fall into decay, so that there are few documents to remind about it.
miercuri, 22 aprilie 2009
miercuri, 25 martie 2009
Twilight is a young-adult vampire-romance novel written by author Stephenie Meyer. It was originally published in 2005 in hardback. It is the first book of the Twilight series, and introduces seventeen-year-old Isabella "Bella" Swan who moves from Phoenix, Arizona, to Forks, Washington, and finds her life in danger when she falls in love with a vampire, Edward Cullen. The novel is followed by New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.
Plot summary
Isabella "Bella" Swan moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington to live with her father, Charlie, while her mother, Renée, travels with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a minor league baseball player. Bella attracts much attention at her new school and is quickly befriended by several students. Much to her dismay, several boys compete for shy Bella's attention.
When Bella is seated next to Edward Cullen in class on her first day of school, Edward seems utterly repulsed by her. However, over the next few days Edward warms up to her, and their newfound relationship reaches a climax when Bella is nearly run over by a fellow classmate's van in the school parking lot. Seemingly defying the laws of physics, Edward saves her life when he instantaneously appears next to her and stops the van with his bare hands.
Bella becomes hellbent on figuring out how Edward saved her life, and constantly pesters him with questions. After tricking a family friend, Jacob Black, into telling her local tribal legends, Bella concludes that Edward and his family are vampires who drink animal blood rather than human. Edward confesses that he initially avoided Bella because the scent of her blood was so desirable to him. Over time, Edward and Bella fall in love.
Their relationship is thrown into chaos when another vampire coven sweeps into Forks. James, a tracker vampire who is intrigued by the Cullens' relationship with a human, wants to hunt Bella for sport. The Cullens attempt to distract the tracker by splitting up Bella and Edward, and Bella is sent to hide in a hotel in Phoenix. There, Bella receives a phone call from James, who claims he is holding her mother captive. When Bella surrenders herself, James attacks her, but Edward, along with the other Cullens, rescues Bella and kills James. Once they realize that James has bitten Bella's hand, Edward sucks the venom from her system before it can spread and transform her into a vampire, and she is then sent to a hospital. Upon returning to Forks, Bella and Edward attend their school prom and Bella expresses her desire to become a vampire, which Edward refuses.
Awards and nominations
Twilight gained recognition and won numerous honors, including:
- A New York Times Editor's Choice
- A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
- An American Library Association "Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults" and "Top Ten Books for Reluctant Readers"
- Translation into 20 languages [4]
- A New York Times Best Seller[5]
- The best selling book of 2008 according to USA Today[6]
Twilight
The Story Behind Twilight
I get a ton of questions about how I came up with the story of Twilight and how I got it published. I may be killing my FAQ page by doing this, but here is the whole story:
(Warning: there are Twilight spoilers contained in the following; if you don't want to ruin the suspense, stop reading.....now. Warning #2: As you might have guessed from the length of my book, I can't tell a short story—this is going to take a while. You have been warned.)
The Writing: I know the exact date that I began writing Twilight, because it was also the first day of swim lessons for my kids. So I can say with certainty that it all started on June 2, 2003. Up to this point, I had not written anything besides a few chapters (of other stories) that I never got very far on, and nothing at all since the birth of my first son, six years earlier.
I woke up (on that June 2nd) from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately. For what is essentially a transcript of my dream, please see Chapter 13 ("Confessions") of the book.
Though I had a million things to do (i.e. making breakfast for hungry children, dressing and changing the diapers of said children, finding the swimsuits that no one ever puts away in the right place, etc.), I stayed in bed, thinking about the dream. I was so intrigued by the nameless couple's story that I hated the idea of forgetting it; it was the kind of dream that makes you want to call your friend and bore her with a detailed description. (Also, the vampire was just so darned good-looking, that I didn't want to lose the mental image.) Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down at the computer to write—something I hadn't done in so long that I wondered why I was bothering. But I didn't want to lose the dream, so I typed out as much as I could remember, calling the characters "he" and "she."
From that point on, not one day passed that I did not write something. On bad days, I would only type out a page or two; on good days, I would finish a chapter and then some. I mostly wrote at night, after the kids were asleep so that I could concentrate for longer than five minutes without being interrupted. I started from the scene in the meadow and wrote through to the end. Then I went back to the beginning and wrote until the pieces matched up. I drove the "golden spike" that connected them in late August, three months later.
It took me a while to find names for my anonymous duo. For my vampire (who I was in love with from day one) I decided to use a name that had once been considered romantic, but had fallen out of popularity for decades. Charlotte Bronte's Mr. Rochester and Jane Austen's Mr. Ferrars were the characters that led me to the name Edward. I tried it on for size, and found that it fit well. My female lead was harder. Nothing I named her seemed just right. After spending so much time with her, I loved her like a daughter, and no name was good enough. Finally, inspired by that love, I gave her the name I was saving for my daughter, who had never shown up and was unlikely to put in an appearance at this point: Isabella. Huzzah! Edward and Bella were named. For the rest of the characters, I did a lot of searching in old census records, looking for popular names in the times that they'd been born. Some trivia: Rosalie was originally "Carol" and Jasper was first "Ronald." I like the new names much better, but every now and then I will slip up and type Carol or Ron by accident. It really confuses the people who read my rough drafts.
For my setting, I knew I needed someplace ridiculously rainy. I turned to Google, as I do for all my research needs, and looked for the place with the most rainfall in the U.S. This turned out to be the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. I pulled up maps of the area and studied them, looking for something small, out of the way, surrounded by forest... And there, right where I wanted it to be, was a tiny town called "Forks." It couldn't have been more perfect if I had named it myself. I did a Google image search on the area, and if the name hadn't sold me, the gorgeous photographs would have done the trick. (Images like these of the Hoh Rainforest (a short drive from Forks). Also see forks-web.com ). In researching Forks, I discovered the La Push Reservation, home to the Quileute Tribe. The Quileute story is fascinating, and a few fictional members of the tribe quickly became intrinsic to my story.
All this time, Bella and Edward were, quite literally, voices in my head. They simply wouldn't shut up. I'd stay up as late as I could stand trying to get all the stuff in my mind typed out, and then crawl, exhausted, into bed (my baby still wasn't sleeping through the night, yet) only to have another conversation start in my head. I hated to lose anything by forgetting, so I'd get up and head back down to the computer. Eventually, I got a pen and notebook for beside my bed to jot notes down so I could get some freakin' sleep. It was always an exciting challenge in the morning to try to decipher the stuff I'd scrawled across the page in the dark.
During the day, I couldn't stay away from the computer, either. When I was stuck at swim lessons, out in 115 degrees of Phoenix sunshine, I would plot and scheme and come home with so much new stuff that I couldn't type fast enough. It was your typical Arizona summer, hot, sunny, hot, and hot, but when I think back to those three months, I remember rain and cool green things, like I really spent the summer in the Olympic Rainforest.
When I'd finished the body of the novel, I started writing epilogues...lots of epilogues. This eventually clued me in to the fact that I wasn't ready to let go of my characters, and I started working on the sequel. Meanwhile, I continued to edit Twilight in a very obsessive-compulsive way.
My older sister, Emily, was the only one who really knew what I was up to. In June, I'd started sending her chapters as I finished them, and she soon became my cheerleading section. She was always checking in to see if I had something new for her. It was Emily who first suggested, after I'd finished, that I should try to get Twilight published. I was so stunned by the fact that I'd actually finished a whole, entire book, that I decided to look into it.
Getting Published: To put it mildly, I was naive about publishing. I thought it worked like this: you printed a copy of your novel, wrapped it up in brown paper, and sent it off to a publishing house. Ho ho ho, that's a good one. I started googling (naturally) and began to discover that this was not the way it is done. (Movies lie to us! Why?! A side note: you will not be able to enjoy the new Steve Martin version of Cheaper by the Dozen when you know how insanely impossible the publishing scenario it contains is.) The whole set up with query letters, literary agents, simultaneous submissions vs. exclusive submissions, synopsizes, etc., was extremely intimidating, and I almost quit there. It certainly wasn't belief in my fabulous talent that made me push forward; I think it was just that I loved my characters so much, and they were so real to me, that I wanted other people to know them, too.
I subscribed to WritersMarket.com and compiled a list of small publishers that accepted unsolicited submissions and a few literary agencies. It was around this time that my little sister, Heidi, mentioned Janet Evanovich's website to me. In her Q and A for writers section, Janet E. mentioned Writers House, among a few others, as "the real thing" in the world of literary agencies. Writers House went on my wish list as the most desirable and also least likely.
I sent out around fifteen queries (and I still get residual butterflies in my stomach when I drive by the mailbox I sent the letters from—mailing them was terrifying.). I will state, for the record, that my queries truly sucked, and I don't blame anyone who sent me a rejection (I did get seven or eight of those. I still have them all, too). The only rejection that really hurt was from a small agent who actually read the first chapter before she dropped the axe on me. The meanest rejection I got came after Little, Brown had picked me up for a three-book deal, so it didn't bother me at all. I'll admit that I considered sending back a copy of that rejection stapled to the write-up my deal got in Publisher's Weekly, but I took the higher road.
My big break came in the form of an assistant at Writers House named Genevieve. I didn't find out until much later just how lucky I was; it turns out that Gen didn't know that 130,000 words is a whole heck of a lot of words. If she'd known that 130K words would equal 500 pages, she probably wouldn't have asked to see it. But she didn't know (picture me wiping the sweat from my brow), and she did ask for the first three chapters. I was thrilled to get a positive response, but a little worried because I felt the beginning of the book wasn't the strongest part. I mailed off those three chapters and got a letter back a few weeks later (I could barely get it open, my hands were so weak with fear). It was a very nice letter. She'd gone back with a pen and twice underlined the part where she'd typed how much she enjoyed the first three chapters (I still have that letter, of course), and she asked for the whole manuscript. That was the exact moment when I realized that I might actually see Twilight in print, and really one of the happiest points in my whole life. I did a lot of screaming.
About a month after I sent in the manuscript, I got a call from Jodi Reamer, an honest to goodness literary agent, who wanted to represent my book. I tried really hard to sound like a professional and a grownup during that conversation, but I'm not sure if I fooled her. Again, my luck was tremendous (and I don't usually have good luck—I've never won anything in my life, and no one ever catches a fish when I'm in the boat) because Jodi is the uber-agent. I couldn't have ended up in better hands. She's part lawyer, part ninja (she's working on earning her black belt right now, no kidding), a pretty amazing editor in her own right, and a great friend.
Jodi and I worked for two weeks on getting Twilight into shape before sending it to editors. The first thing we worked on was the title, which started out as Forks (and I still have a teeny soft spot for that name). Then we polished up a few rough spots, and Jodi sent it out to nine different publishing houses. This really messed with my ability to sleep, but luckily I wasn't in suspense for long.
Megan Tingley, of Megan Tingley Books, of Little, Brown and Company, read Twilight on a cross-country flight and came back to Jodi the day after the Thanksgiving weekend with a preemptive deal so huge that I honestly thought Jodi was pulling my leg—especially the part where she turned the offer down and asked for more. The upshot was that, by the end of the day, I was trying to process the information that not only was my book going to be published by one of the biggest young adult publishers in the country, but that they were going to pay me for it. For a very long time, I was convinced it was a really cruel practical joke, but I couldn't imagine who would go to these wild extremes to play a hoax on such an insignificant little hausfrau.
And that's how, in the course of six months, Twilight was dreamed, written, and accepted for publication.
Things keep getting crazier, what with the movie deal and all the pre-publication attention that Twilight continues to receive. Though I've gotten impatient from time to time, I'm glad I've had the last two years to try to come to terms with the situation. I'm greatly looking forward to finally having Twilight on the shelves, and more than a little frightened, too. Overall, it's been a true labor of love, love for Edward and Bella and all the rest of my imaginary friends, and I'm thrilled that other people get to meet them now.
marți, 24 februarie 2009
Film : le saviez-vous ?
Spirit est un Kiger Mustang. Le cheval qui a servi de modèle principal pour Spirit est un étalon kiger mustang du nom de Donner of Steens Mountains (voir photo). Le kiger mustang est une race reconnue comme telle depuis 1977. Le kiger a une morphologie plus rustique que le mustang en général : il est plus petit, il possède des zébrures aux membres ainsi qu'une raie de mulet sur le dos et une robe de couleur sable, ce qui est le cas de Spirit pour ces deux dernières caractéristiques. Actuellement leur population est estimée à 700 chevaux disséminés principalement dans l'Oregon.
Un regard plus humain. La morphologie de Spirit et de ses congénères reste très proche de la réalité sauf au niveau de la tête. En effet les yeux des véritables chevaux sont situés de chaque coté du visage. Dans le film, les yeux ont été rapprochés et mis sur le devant de la tête pour donner aux chevaux un regard plus humain. Il s'agit là d'une astuce qui permet de retranscrire des émotions "humaines" et de nous faire vibrer plus facilement au rythme des péripéties. Que celui qui n'a pas la larme à l'œil à la vue de certaines scènes du film lève la main…
Mouvement très équin. Pour coller au mieux à la réalité du mouvement naturel du cheval les dessinateurs n'ont pas seulement observé leur mascotte, Donner le kiger mustang. Les 300 dessinateurs et artistes impliqués dans le projet ont suivi des cours d'hippologie et d'éthologie donnés par le docteur Stuart Sumida, paléontologiste et anatomiste. Ils ont aussi manipulé et observé longuement des chevaux dans un ranch voisin des studios Dreamworks. Quant à Donner, il coule aujourd'hui une retraite heureuse en Californie où il vit en semi liberté.
Spirit:l'étalon des plaines ( Stallion of the Cimarron )
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miercuri, 18 februarie 2009
marți, 20 ianuarie 2009
Oraşul a avut nucleul iniţial pe prima terasă a Bahluiului, în apropiere de locul unde acesta primeşte apele pîrîului Nicolina. Ulterior şi-a mărit treptat aria în şesul Bahluiului şi pe versanţii a şapte dealuri (Copou, Şorogari, Miroslava-Galata, Cetăţuia etc.). Numeroasele descoperiri arheologice dovedesc că aceste locuri au fost locuite neîntrerupt încă din paleolitic. S-au identificat, de asemenea, multe aşezări datînd din secolele VII-XIV, ceea ce demonstrează că teritoriul viitorului oraş era intens locuit. Potrivit ultimelor descoperiri, procesul de naştere a oraşului medieval a avut două faze: prima, înainte de a se stabili aici reşedinţa domnitorilor Moldovei, cînd Iaşii devin centrul economnic al regiunii; a doua, după construirea curţii domneşti, la începutul al XV-lea, cînd s-a produs accelerarea procesului de urbanizare. Documentele vremii îl menţionează ca tîrg în a doua jumătate a secolului al XIV-lea, ca punct de vamă în 1408 şi ca oraş în 1415 şi 1434, cînd exista aici o curte domnească. Capitala Moldovei din secolul al XV-lea pînă la 1859, Iaşul a cunoscut o dezvoltare mai accentuată îndeosebi din a doua jumătate a secolului al XVI-lea, cînd domnia a renunţat la sistemul de conducere a statului prin deplasări periodice la diferite curţi din ţară, stabilindu-se definitiv în acest oraş. În această calitate, localitatea a trăit din plin toată istoria zbuciumată a Moldovei, cu multe vicisitudini pricinuite de turci, tătari, poloni sau cazaci, care au ars şi prădat oraşul în 1538, 1577, 1616, 1650, 1686 şi 1821. Domnia lui Vasile Lupu (1634-1653) s-a răsfrînt în înfăţişarea oraşului, care a fost îmbogăţit cu noi edificii. Dezvoltarea aşezării a continuat şi în secolul al XVIII-lea, în 1776 semnalîndu-se existenţa a 30 de bresle ale meşteşugarilor şi negustorilor ieşeni. Încă din secolul al XVII-lea, Iaşul a fost un mare centru de cultură: aici au funcţionat prima tipografie din Moldova şi prima şcoală superioară (Academia Vasiliană); aici au trăit şi scris Grigore Ureche, Miron Costin, Dimitrie Cantemir, Ion Neculce. În a doua jumătate a secolului al XIX-lea a luat fiinţă gruparea cultural-literară Junimea, care a reunit nume de mare prestigiu ca Titu Maiorescu, MIhai Eminescu sau Ion Creangă. În istoria oraşului sunt consemnate numeroase incendii (1776, 1822, 1827, 1838, 1844 etc.) care au distrus o parte însemnată din vechile construcţii. În primele decenii ale secolului al XIX-lea s-au luat cele dintîi măsuri de modernizare a aşezării, care avea aspectul unui sat mare, cu spaţii verzi foarte întinse. În 1806 au apărut primele felinare pentru iluminarea oraşului; în 1833 a început pavarea străzilor; în aceeaşi perioadă s-au luat măsuri pentru regularizarea cursului Bahluiului şi s-a instituit paza contra incendiilor.
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 Piaţa Unirii nr.1, 700056, Iaşi, România tel: +40 232 266 666 fax: +40 232 212 187 e-mail: reservation@grandhoteltraian.ro www.grandhoteltraian.ro
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| Sunteţi adeptul dimineţilor matinale sau preferaţi un început de zi petrecut pânã târziu într-un pat confortabil? În funcţie de alegere puteţi servi micul dejun în camerã în fiecare dimineaţã între orele: 7.00 - 10.30 sau, vã invitãm la un mic dejun în stil bufet suedez, în Salonul Clasic între orele 7.00 - 10.30 în cursul sãptãmânii, respectiv 7.00 - 11.00 în zilele de Sâmbãtã şi Duminicã. | |
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| Restaurant TRAÍAN, cu Salonul Clasic, Salonul Alb şi Cocktail Bar vã invitã la o nesfârşitã sãrbãtoare a simţurilor. Într-un ambient aristocratic, la lumina intimã a candelabrelor şi în sunetul nobil al pianului, ne alintãm distinşii oaspeţi cu delicii culinare. Meniul rafinat şi consistent, combinã specialitãţile bucãtãriei tradiţional româneşti cu savoarea bucãtãriei internaţionale. O bãuturã relaxantã la sfârşitul unei zile lungi şi obositoare, o întâlnire de succes, sau un pahar de şampanie, ca un preludiu al unei seri imperiale, vã vor convinge cã inima hotelului nostru este Cocktail Bar. | |
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| Spaţioasã, impozantã, versatilã... Oferind un spaţiu generos pe o suprafaţã de 450 mp, cu posibilitate de compartimentare în douã sãli cu capacitate de 200 locuri fiecare, este una dintre atracţiile de top ale hotelului. [Detalii] | |
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| Intimã şi separatã de efervescenţa marilor conferinţe, sala în care regãsiţi liniştea basmelor vã face din evenimentul dumneavoastrã unul de neuitat... [Detalii] | |
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| Ospitalitate pentru 550 oaspeţi... Cu trei sãli multifuncţionale, Centrul de Conferinţã TRAÍAN vã asigurã soluţia idealã pentru congrese, întâlniri de afaceri, cocktail-uri sau alte evenimente. Un minunat compliment adus clasicilor literaturii române, Sãlile Eminescu, Creangã şi Caragiale, confortabile, elegante şi versatile adaugã un plus de energie şi stil oricãrei întâlniri. |  | |||
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 Capodoperã a secolului XIX, Grand Hotel TRAÍAN vã întâmpinã cu atmosfera unicã datã de îmbinarea perfectã a confortului contemporan cu eterna eleganţã. În Piaţa Unirii, chiar în inima vibrantã a oraşului Iaşi, Grand Hotel TRAÍAN, bijuterie arhitectonicã a maestrului Gustave Eiffel, se bucurã de o localizare de excepţie. Permiteţi-ne sã vã tentãm... | |
