Holiday Sightseeings

Going through my blog, I thought it might not be too late to share photos taken during our trip to The Netherlands last December 2007. Since we were not able to go back home to Pinas, Zach and I decided to reward ourselves for our hard work for 2007 with this trip and to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.

We braved the busy pre-Christmas days and flew to Brussels last 22^nd December. We took a side trip and spent the night in the Belgian capital where we met up with college friends, couple Rey and Elanie.

Grand Place, Brussels

light and sound display show where they illuminated the Town Hall with hundreds of colourful lights which changes along with the classical music.

Brussels Christmas Market: Elanie and I trying out the must-try German mulled wine Glühwein

and Belgian waffle

parade of restaurants near Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert.

The following day, we took a 2-hour train ride and got off at Rotterdam Central in Holland where my Auntie Darling and her Dutch husband Uncle Dirk picked us up and drove us around the modern city for sightseeing.

Rotterdam is a city with modern architecture (as compared to Amsterdam) since it was greatly damaged by World War II bombings. Rotterdam port is the biggest in Europe and one of the world’s busiest.

Rotterdam's cube houses

My uncle brought us to see this weird structure in Rotterdam -

A building literally on top of another one.

Erasmusbrug ("Erasmus Bridge") across Nieuwe Mass River linking the

southern and northern part of the city

a quick shot in front of Auntie Darling and Uncle Dirk's house

Amsterdam welcomed us the following day. We drove to the country capital early in the morning and took a side trip to the city center before going to my Auntie Nenet’s place where we will be spending Christmas Eve.

Royal Palace, Amsterdam

The canals and bicycles of Amsterdam

Amsterdam at night

Taken while on a canal boat tour - typical boat houses along the canal and

Dutch structures at the bank of the canal.

Just after Christmas, the days were spent resting at home, visiting friends, partying with Filipino organizations, sightseeing and shopping. As for me and Zach, we did not let our holidays pass without visiting Elanie and Rey's town down South of Holland - s'Hertogenbosch or Den Bosch. As we did not have enough time to chat-to-the-max while in Brussels, we stayed for a night at their place and chat and drink the night away.

Photo-op immediately after stepping out of Den Bosch train station. hehe!

College buddies Elanie and I - reunited after 7 years

Zach, I and St. John's Basilica in s'Hertogenbosch

Little Women ( as in small gid ya...) conquered Europe. hehe!

The next day, Rey and Elanie brought us to Madurodam in The Hague. It is a miniature city showcasing a model of Dutch typical structures and landmarks.

Head office of Nationale-Nederlanden in miniature

Amsterdam Royal Palace

Zach enjoyed watching the mini cars driving along the mini street.

ECE5A in Madurodam - Rey, Elanie and me.

And since we are in The Hague, we dropped by the Peace Palace before calling it a day.

The Peace Palace is home to a number of international judicial institutions, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or World Court, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), the renowned Peace Palace Library, as well as the Hague Academy of International Law, which attracts law students from all over the world every summer.

The Peace Palace - a quick shot just before it got dark

A Commuter’s Life

It feels good to be back! I’ve been missing in action for the last 4 months, that is, in the blogging world. Work have been hectic and demanding that I hardly had time to maintain this blog. I’ve been meaning to share my adventures but I always found myself struggling with work and home chores realizing later that my planned blog updates were actually out-of-date. Hehe!

For the past months, I’ve been living a life of a commuter. Work requires me to be based in Bonn, Germany and all these months I’ve been travelling every Monday and goes back home in England on Fridays. The hour and a half flight is easy to deal with. It’s the flight delays in Heathrow Airport - being one of the busiest airport in the world that seem to be sucking the strength (and patience?!!!) out of me. Hotel rooms have been my home for 4 nights every week. For the first few weeks, it felt quite posh staying in these 5-star hotels and enjoying the comfort they offer but after a while I started missing my modest room in our England home. Indeed, there’s no place like home.

It’s actually starting to wear me out but I actually have no choice – for now. Definitely, I need to go back home and spend my weekends with Zach and try to fulfil my wifely duties. Hehe! My Saturdays are spent resting and catching up with laundry and other home chores. On Sundays, we attend mass in the morning and spend quality time dining out, shopping or visiting friends and end the day preparing for my trip the next Monday morning. On how long I can endure this routine, I am not sure. Hehe!

All I know is that I have a lot to be thankful for and there’s no room for me to complain. I have the most understanding husband whom I have not heard complaining about having an absentee wife. I have the opportunity to travel without costing me anything. I get to experience the German way of life and culture and meet all the friendly people here. Career-wise, I have this opportunity to work and learn with different people.

But I will always remain hopeful that somehow there will be a possibility for me to work remotely in UK for this project. After all, more than anything else, my life is in England.

Pinoys in Fleet

When I first came here and was looking around for a flat, I had absolutely no idea if there were any Filipino communities in the area and the neighboring towns. I tried to ask my relocation agent at that time but she told me she’d ask around and come back to me with the information (which she never did). After 7 properties in 3 different towns, I settled with the one in Fleet which is the closest to public transport as I did not have a car back then and it was only about 6 minute-drive away from my workplace in Southwood, Farnborough. It was only later that I learned from a Filipino colleague that there are considerable number of Filipino families in neighboring towns of Farnborough and Frimley (which has a big hospital with majority of its nurses coming from the Philippines).

Walking around in Fleet’s town center, I would get excited whenever I see Pinoy-looking people and realizing later that they were actually Thai or Napalese. Hehe! Until I finally met a Filipina from the church and it was there I learned that there weren’t much Filipinos in Fleet. Over the months, my circle of Filipino friends widens and all of them are living in Farnborough, Frimley and Camberley.

Not until a few months ago when my hubby bumped into a Pinay in one of his train rides. From then on, we have been frequenting their house for a barbecue and it was through those gathering that I got to meet the other kababayan living around the town. In a span of a month, two more guys arrived from Pinas and we all agreed that our community in Fleet has somehow grown not into a really big community but just enough that everyone knows everyone. It’s exciting that the “Ate’s” are actually talking about having a Pinoy Christmas Party!!

fraction of the whole Pinoy gang

The Carnival

Autumn is officially here. Time passed by so fast that it seemed like last week when we still planned a lot of activities for the summer.

The supposedly summer of this year was way a lot different from the one I had in this country last year. Who would ever think that the wettest month on record in Britain occurred last June? And it was in this summer when widespread flooding occurred across the country in June and July affecting Northern Ireland, North Yorkshire, The Midlands, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and South Wales. Summer is supposed to be sunny and warm, right? In all fairness to Mother Nature, we had a glimpse of beaming sunshine every now and then which would last a week or two and will then be followed by rainy and cold days.

And the last week of August was one of those sunny periods in which the annual Notting Hill Carnival is held. Actually, coming over to London for that event was a spur of a moment decision. We just caught its invitation ad in TV while we were at a friend’s house for a barbecue and having a new Filipino with us (who just came here in England a couple of weeks ago); we all agreed to travel early the next day.

Notting Hill Carnival, a Caribbean population-led event, as mentioned, is an annual event held every August covering Sunday and the next day Bank Holiday Monday. It has been celebrated since 1965 as a response to the deteriorating racial relations. All through the years, it has been viewed as a celebration of London’s multi-cultural diversity. However, it cannot be denied that it is always marred by riots and conflicts with the police (which is mainly the reason I first hesitated in going especially that Zach has a planned tennis game thus he wouldn’t be able to join us.)

On that sunny day, we first had lunch buffet at Chinatown before hitting the cramped underground and headed to Notting Hill where we will be waiting for the parade to start. The festival was not actually new to me as I felt it was more of like our Masskara Festival in Bacolod or the Pasalamat Festival in La Carlota City. It was all complete with street dancing, colorful costumes, residents participating in the festivities even from the windows of their elegant Victorian terrace houses, food kiosks and people peddling booze and grass (yes! grass as in marijuana) as if they were as ordinary as softdrinks and stork candies. Hehe!!! Walking down along Portobello Road, you can find makeshift stages and blasting sound systems just a few meters from each other and with people (wasted or high) dancing their hearts out. It was well-attended with an estimated 1 million people gathering to witness the event.

Dropping by London's Chinatown for buffet lunch and some dimsum

Black and colorful

Festive Beat

A souvenir shot with the performers - with Ate Winnie

They're not all black after all ;)

What were these Orientals doing in a Jamaican festival???

Whew!

Thank God, it’s finally over. And I think… I’ve done well.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been really preoccupied preparing for that presentation. I was not that confident since I will be presenting a workshop on a certain topic I have absolutely no idea and it has something to do with IP and networking which is really not my cup of tea. That knowledge-sharing has something to do with our quarterly Convergence forum. What more? I will be talking about it in front of my colleagues that are far more senior than me in terms of experience. Nevertheless, the moderator kept on boosting my confidence that somehow most of them haven’t really taken time to know more about it if at all.

So after a couple of postponement, it actually happened today. I was looking forward for that day when I can finally get on and get over with it and at the same time dread the day. Answering questions outside the scope of my presentation really worried me. I just can’t bear the thought of me being dumbfounded and not knowing what to say and knowing these people, their questions could really take a toll on the presenter.

But after all, I managed to do it kind of…well even if for the first time our manager decided to attend the forum and he was actually sitting right in front me.