yume

Ola Amigas! Here's an overview on what I experienced in my trip.  I wanna share it :)

We took Qatar Airways because it was the cheapest and surprisingly the best airline so far.  The seats are more spacious and the service is excellent.  Northwest is by far the worst at this.  It's like a chicken coop with the meager space they provide and their staff people are all wrinkly and impatient.

First stop was at Doha after 9 hours.  We had to wait for 4 hours. I fell asleep on the steel chairs and woke up to a nasty stiff neck.  It was another 7 hours to Gatwick, London.
First stop when we arrived after like a 22 hr flight: Tower of London. The crowned jewels are here.  

 We had absolutely no rest when we arrived.  We just changed into a new set of clothes then out the door baybeh! We stayed at Luna & Simone Hotel which is located along Belgrave road.
This is Belgrave Road.  Those white buildings were originally mansions owned by 'em rich people.  Now they've been converted to hotels.  One mansion to one hotel.  They don't exactly look like hotels.  They all look the same.  The only difference is the signs outside stating the name of the said hotel.  Each hotel only has about 10 rooms so just calculate the space.

The iconic Big Ben.  You know what, I was actually star struck when I saw it.  It just popped out of a post card.  Well of course what I took isn't post card material but you know what I mean right? The weather wasn't that good that day so the colors don't pop out much.  I'm too lazy to do any post processing at the moment. Haha



After riding the London eye and going to Trafalgar sqaure, we went to the Bristish Museum.  And would you believe admission's free?  Some other museums are free as well.  But it just really makes me wonder how. The musuems ARE HUGGGGGE AND I MEAN HUGE.  Imagine it as big as the whole STC. 
Took the day tour to Windsor castle (where the Queen lives), Bath, and Stonehenge.  
Just gotta love 'em fuzzy hats.  
Changing of the guards at Buckingham palace.
Carlisle avenue.  It does look like the Upper East side right? 
Bath.  

This is actually the only hot spring in England. It's been there for centuries.  It was discovered by a former king who was ostracized because he had leprosy.  He was cured when he bathed himself here.  

What's weird though, you can't touch the water because it's contaminated or not purified.  People who once lived around Bath would throw pieces of leather where curses were written.

Don't they look like milk carton twins?
Stonehenge.  This place is still a complete mystery.  The only thing they know is that the rocks weigh more than a couple of tons and that some of them came from Wales and some of them came from the shoreline.  Just makes you wonder what kind of miracle happened for them to carry these rocks.

 Portobello, Notting hill.  It's full of vintage stuff and one-of-a-kind knick knacks.

Aren't they adorable? Miniatures are my weakness.


White hills of Dover.  Boat ride from London to the border of France.  
We used the tour bus all throughout the tour.  It's really hard to wake up at 5 am every single day.  Bags out 630 then 730 we leave for the next country.  We usually arrive around 9 pm at the next hotel where we're forced to socialize during dinner then it's bedtime by 11.  EVERY SINGLE DAY.  But it's nice to see these kind of fields and some of the rural scenery.

Say hello to Amsterdam! Pictures aren't actually required in the red district area.  I had to risk the life of my camera for a few shots.  Most of the shops have the word "sex" in it and some of the items are just bizarre and well...disturbing.  I could smell the smoke from marijuana coming out from those get happy cafes.  I just know they're not just tobacco because the smell was just different.  Looking inside, you'll see that people are like zombies.  Hahaha.

Taking pictures of the girls were just impossible! But they look like this:

It still has a different charm, though.  Even though it's a bit scary with all the half-naked walruses batting eyelashes with dirty old men, Amsterdam is still pretty.  They don't have much land so people started living in boat houses.
This was like 8 pm already.  I took this in the bus so that explains that lil green nuisance over there hehe.  The CPL filter can do so much you know.
After Amsterdam, it was Austria for us.  This shot with the tulips was taken at a stopover going there.
This toilet is just amazing! When you flush, that blue thing comes out then squeezes out a cleanser then the toilet seat (yes the seat!) rotates 360 degrees as the blue thing wipes in place while the whole thing rotates! Pretty cool huh? This was actually the toilet that proved its worth for the toilet fee thing.  For the entire trip we spent about 8,000 pesos just for using the freaking toilet! They would charge at least half a euro per go.
One of the stained glass windows in a gothic church in Cologne, Germany.
We took the Rhine cruise where it's like a whole stretch of castles! It was very unique.  This is the only place where you can see many castles left to right.
Glockenspiel at Munich.  
Finally in Austria.  We went to the Swarovski main store and had gelato.  I got quite excited with the alps, not knowing that Switzerland was going to be a lot better!


From Germany, it's off to Venice, Italy.  We went to the Murano house and saw how glass was blown.  Ganun pala yun.  It starts looking like a red molten rock then it forms into something else when they blow through a pipe.
Venice was a bit overrated for me.  It's too crowded and commercialized.  And the ever magical gondola ride?  Bah.  It's still pretty though. 
Rome ranks as one of my favorites.  Every lil corner has its own history to tell.  

Ok, I just had to jump from that rock for a higher jump.  Let's just say I have a lil remembrance on my knee. Hahaha

Florence:  Quaint little town. The home of Michelangelo and Dante Aligheri (we all know we luuuurve the book Inferno) Also the home of the 3rd largest church in the whole world (Duomo) - the biggest is St Peter's (in Rome).

Did ya know that before when they didn't have toilets they would do their business in a bowl (like a salad bowl) then when it's all filled up, they'd throw it out the window without any warning. Just guess how lucky the guy down the street is. Then they made a rule that you had to shout "Attenzione!" thrice before dumping the shit and piss.

Also the place of the best leather goods. Our guide told us that those goods you'd see with "genuine leather" on it aren't genuine at all. The only leather in those things is that lil patch where the genuine leather is written.

It's reallly huge.  Even my wide angle lens won't make it fit.
Leaning tower of Pisa.  So that checks out one of the must-do pictures.
After Italy, it's Switzerland baybeh! This is really my favorite.  Switzerland caught me off guard. I was just really at awe - I fell in love with the place. Everything is just so orderly and clean too! When I die, a vignette of the swiss alps will probably appear as one of the highlights of my life. I'm not exaggerating!

We rode a train to Mt. Pilatus (the steepest). And the view was just so surreal! If only time could freeze...

Climbed up the Esel peak (which is the highest one in Pilatus) and just went to heaven. It was just so pristine and beautiful! Ok do I still need to use superlatives to emphasize the fact that it was just sooooooo beautiful?? 

I wanted to stay long on top but my family wanted to go down because they were freezing alrea

dy. Well actually we were all freezing but who cares hahaha. It was ethereal!

Also went on a cruise on Lucerne lake. The color of the water was very pretty and the view of the landscapes and houses we

re nice. I've always loved lakes. They have this mysterious beauty and unique calmness that just gets me.

Had lunch in Stadkeller - traditional swiss food and cheese fondue. There was also a show with yodeling, alpine horn blowing, broom danci

ng, bell ringing, and singing whilst letting a coin rotate on a milk bowl (it imitates the cow bells).

Also went to the main town where we went to Bucherer, a 5-floor shop full of those big time watch sellers. 

Notre Dame in Paris. I went up the 422 steps alone! It was so tiring I didn't know if I was going up or down anymore.  The steps kept getting narrower by the minute - I thought I was going to miss a step then completely slide down until I reach the bottom.  It was really scary.

This was the view from the top.

Look Miranda! It's PONYO!!!! Ponyo ponyo sakanaaaa haha :P I took this from inside the bus and it was night time so the shutter speed was poor.  So sorry :P This really reminded me of you Miranda.  When I saw this I kept smiling to myself I felt like a retard. :))
Lo and behold, the Eiffel tower at night.  They usually don't open the lights to we were really lucky. This was taken during our cruise along the river Seine.

Lourdes, France. 6 hr train ride from Paris. The weather during the first day wasn't really pleasant so it was really cold. But this place is really perfect for hard on religious people. People here pray and worship all day. Would you imagine joining the procession every single night? Overall, it was a refreshing experience. I wasn't able to take a dip on the spring where Mama Mary was said to appear because it was too cold, but I was able to have my own share by drinking it and taking some home.

We were fortunate enough that when we went, there was some kind of annual european soldier piligrimage thing going on. Seeing all the soldiers from different countries in different uniforms marching and playing various instruments was rather interesting. Not to mention hot teenage soldiers hahaha.

At the palace of Versailles.  At the whole of mirrors.
The gardens are just majestic.
They have loadsss of fountains.  And a whole lot of land to beat.  It was really beautiful - enchanting even.  But most of it was over the top.




Le Eiffel tower.  Yes, I must have my jump shots haha.  One of the elevators was dead so that meant double the waiting time.  I wasn't that disappointed though.  The view from Notre Dame's even better.  At least from there, I could take a picture with the Eiffel tower in it.
Arc de triomphe.  

All in all, I had so much fun! The idea of waking up to a brand new day not entirely knowing where will be going, what will we see, and everything in between.  Laugh if you must but it really opened my eyes to a whole lot of opportunities.  I am ecstatic for the endless possibilities in my future.  Everything may seem quite squabbled and uncertain right now but at least not everything's set on stone.  It's scary and exciting at the same time I get giddy when I think about it.  

I made a wish under the wishing bridge in Paris. I hope all goes well.  And I'll tire myself to death even if that means it's the only way :)

Adrift

Oh hey people. Haven't blogged (decently) lately. The Eurotrip photo blog entry will be up soon. I'm just so busy lately. I've been editing the video from our trip and may I just say that it's soooo tedious. The handycam's the troublesome one. It's quite ancient (it uses tapes not memo sticks) so I had to transfer the video via i-link to my sony vaio. It transfers in real time so it took me about 4 hours to do just that. Then, I had to save the video on a flash disk so that i could transfer it to my Mac quickly. After that, I had to convert the .WMV file into an .MP4 file which took me another 3 hours. Since the tape is recycled, the video just overwrote the old video so I still had to edit in iMovie just to edit out the video that wasn't part of the Eurotrip. That took about an hour because it took forever for iMovie to make the video thumbnails. After rendering it and publishing it, I finally used iDvd where I could just drag and drop while it does all the creative dvd menu stuff.

I still have to make the subfolders for the pictures though. I have to categorize them by country and choose the best pictures before I can burn the Dvd.

OHMAYYYY.

On a different note, I gave up and surrendered to my curiosity. I watched the first ep of Boys before flowers! I knew about it ages ago but I just didn't have that much interest back then. And I can't believe it's actually a version of Hana Yori Dango. I know it's a version of Meteor Garden but I never thought that it was really based on a classic like Hana Yori Dango.

It was brownout today, which made matters really worse. I loved it when we were in Europe - I like cold better than hot. Now that we're back, I feel like there's a person in front of my face exhaling! Ewww. It was so hot that I lay down on the marble floor in the sala while reading Kafka on the Shore by Murakami. I bet if anybody saw me they would have laughed at me. But the marble floor was the only thing cold!

Kuya Ryan's parents formally asked Ate's hand in marriage over dinner today. We were finally able to meet the Gaston family and I'm looking forward to the wedding. Or maybe not. That'd mean Ate will be leaving after a week. Hayyyy.