happy canada day, everyone! even if you aren't from the best country in the world... :D
well, lots to say, i'll try to squeeze in everything i can... but first, my thoughts and prayers for my family
in calgary as my uncle howard passed away last week. he lived a long and fruitful life. may God be with him.
onto some lighter things... the raps did end up picking
chris bosh so hopefully all
the prognosticators are right on this one... he looks like a good kid too, giving props to his dad for keeping
him on the straight and level...
the canadian party was great! i think around 90 ppl showed up during the course of the night, talking, chilling,
and dancing the night away at jason's place... it was awesome. we set up everything (from the stereo equipment
we rented (incl. a mixer and a strobe light!) to the sleeman posters) on friday, took in the beer we ordered and
prepped all the food on saturday morning... and it was all worth it! nothing but high praise from everyone who
was there... pics to follow...
ok, i really did have more to say... but i'll wait for the pics to accompany everything.
7.3.2003 barcelona recap day 4/5
well, i'm finally gonna finish off the barcelona trip recap, and hopefully move faster through the archives...
no vacations planned for the next little while, so hopefully i'll get more time to actually update the site with
pics and such... still got copenhagen, freiburg/heidelberg, toronto (incl. mark's wedding), london and the
canadian party... phew!
ok, anyways, the day after the pub crawl, me and the americans (joe, lauren, meredith and kate) decide to hit the
beach, cuz it's a really nice day. so i'm hoping to get a little wet (ain't nothing like some good waves), and
i decide to go as light as possible... brought a towel, my visor and my money. that's about it.
the weather was great... sun was shining, nary a cloud in the sky... we walked down la ramblas
to the port, where we dilly-dallied a bit, cuz they were trying to figure out how to get to mallorca on the
cheap... well, it just wasn't happening... we walk all over the waterfront, stopping for lunch at mcd's
(shameful, i know), before finally making our way down to the beach...
panorama view on the beach (click for a larger version)
it didn't take us long to settle on one spot... threw down our towels and just chilled. in hindsight, i shoulda
brought my discman, but it was no big deal, i ended up borrowing kate's... no one else seemed to want to go into
the water, so i decided to go for it on my own...
the first time, i only went in about halfway up my calves, cuz it was bloody cold... but the second time, i
figured i wouldn't get to jump into that wavy saltwater anytime soon, so what the heck... and i raced in. it
was really cold! but of course, i was more interested in the waves... man, i love jumping
waves, and getting carried about ever so gently by the current... i did swim out a bit further, enough for a
baywatch-style lifeguard to watch me from the edge of the water... heheh, no worries though, i came back in after
about 5 minutes...
after the beach, we headed back in search of some grub... kate found this cheap chinese buffet place, and of
course, i was skeptical about it, but then, where else could you stuff yourself for 6 euros? so we hit it up...
it was alright, better than the mcd's, that's for sure.
we chilled back at the hostel for a bit before deciding to go out... we met up with chris, kevin and their friend
nick as well as this other guy who was in their room... some of them wanted to make some calls home first, so
we went out to use the pay phones on the street, and there was another girl there, barb from new york (i think),
trying to use her calling card, but failing miserably. joe tried to help but couldn't, and i was trying as
well, but wasn't really doing anything.
on a whim, i decided to try something i didn't think would work, but it did! deadly... anyways, barb and i were
sorta chatting, and she invited us to party with her and her friends - her 6 girlfriends. can you almost tell
where this is going? so of course, i wanted to party with them, but the american ppl i was with were already
heading up la ramblas... what to do? what to do?
i didn't know where we were going, so i couldn't tell barb to meet up with us later (her friends were all at a
different bar), though the other guy (from before) said it was just up a couple blocks and to the left... and i
didn't wanna ditch the other guys and make me seem all desperate or anything... so barb told me where her and her
friends were at, and i said hopefully i'll find out where we're going and i'll come back and get you.
well, up a couple blocks and to the left, my butt. it was just the next street on the left, and so far in, i
know the girls would've never made it there. plus one of the guys was sorta accosted by a kid trying to take
wallet... pretty sketchy area. well, we end up at this bar, where the other guy is raving about some alcohol
that we all gotta try... turns out to be absinthe. sorry. been there, done that. i left the girls for this?!?
so i wait it out some more, not to be too obvious, but after 10-15 minutes, i say that i'm gonna go to get the
girls... i bolt back to la ramblas, and eventually find the place barb mentioned... but no
sign of her, or any of the other 6 girls in her group. i mean, come on, how hard is it to see 7 girls on their
own in a bar? well, i looked high and low, up and down the street... no dice. and they for sure wouldn't have
found us either. <sigh>
parc guell
anyways, i go back and we're leaving that bar... we wander around some more, and they decide to go to a club.
same one as the pub crawl 2 nights ago. er, no thanks. i decide to skip out on the club and head back to the
hostel... what a crappy ending to that evening. bleh.
the next morning, i go and see the last thing i had to see: gaudi's parc guell. i check out
of the hostel, leave my pack in the locker and take the subway up to the park. it's filled with lots of gaudi's
sculptures and artwork... beautiful public space... a great place to just chill, out in the open air... in fact,
i see some businessmen here on their lunch break, in addition to all the families and kids... and tourists...
from there, i head back to get my stuff and boot it to the airport... barely made my flight, but my travel
procrastination is another story unto itself.
7.8.2003 recipe for fast friends
to all the ppl (jnet, that's you!) looking for the wedding pics... hold your horses! good things come to those
who wait... :oP
so i'm in the process of reinstalling stuff on my laptop here, cuz the printer i bought last week (my first
colour printer - woohoo!) just doesn't install. nothing's working. no install from cd. no install from the
downloaded driver installer from hp.com. no install from hotplugging the usb
cable. no install from the add printer option. i think it's the os. stupid windows me.
anyways, this past weekend was pretty nice. on sat., i went into düsseldorf to meet up with lauren... did i
ever tell the story about her? alright, just hang on a bit... we chill for most of the day, looking at the pics
i got developed that day (and that's another story itself), then out for some grub... it was nice, just chillin.
on sunday, i went to brunch at chris' place for a little while... him and his roommate markus put on a nice
little brunch for a few of their friends... angie came along and heidi and matthias were there, as well as some
others... then i went to ibc for service, which was interesting because a. i stayed awake for the whole sermon,
and b. there were some first-timers (at the church) from uganda and angola. coolz! then after chilling at
starbucks for a while, i met up with amélie for dinner... we just got some italian food to go and went back to
her place.
ok, so how i met lauren... my flight back to toronto in june was with british
airways... i had to fly from düsseldorf to london, then london to toronto... well, on the first leg, i'm one
of the last on the plane, and i make my way to the seat... i've got my backpack with my camera stuff in it, and
then my roots bag.
well, this girl in the window seat of my row (i have the aisle seat in a 3-seat row) all of a sudden asks me
where in canada i'm from... and i'm sorta shocked, cuz i wasn't really expecting it, so i'm like, huh? and then
she says she saw the roots bag, and was wondering where i was from... hahaha... good ol' roots.
so we strike up a conversation, and the lady in between us was kind enough to offer to switch seats with me...
so lauren and i are chatting the entire flight (only 1.5 hours), but we manage to find out what we're doing here
and all that... she's studying commerce at queen's, but she's doing some exchange internship thing now at
l'oréal in düsseldorf. she's also half-scottish, half-japanese. cool, eh?
well, we exchanged numbers and email at heathrow (she was going to london for a job interview), and next thing
you know, she's taken the invite for the canadian party and we're instant friends. hahaha... take 2 canadians,
one foreign continent, shake well, and serve.
7.14.2003 garfield's not the only one who hates mondays
well, it's been a while... a couple of items i missed over the last little while...
- may 25 marked the the first anniversary of me living here in this shared flat
- june 28 marked the second anniversary of me arriving here in germany
- july 1 marked the second anniversary of me working at ericsson
no comment on any of those. eh, whatever.
anyhoo, this weekend was pretty busy... yesterday, i went into köln (no surprise there) for a little shopping...
didn't get anything. then there was a combined birthday and farewell party in leverkusen, about 20 minutes from
köln... birthday for mary-anne, farewell for gabriella (she's going back to namibia later this month)... then i
picked up jason from the köln-bonn airport after his 2-week vacation...
today at ibc, we had a communion service, but also a sorta commissioning
service for volker, who's going to malawi on saturday for 5 weeks. he'll be teaching and helping out with
children, presumably at some type of camp... may God bless him and the people he reaches!
also, didn't mention this last week, but frances from my home church, tcmc, left
on a mission trip last tuesday, to mexico... some town across the border from texas... i think she'll be there
for about 3 weeks, supervising 13- to 14-year-old kids as they do their stuff... i'm a little vague on the
details, but suffice it to say, they're probably gonna be doing similar types of things... may God bless her and
the people she reaches!
minh (middle) and her bridesmaids
as per jnet's request, here's a pic from mark and minh's wedding... posted another one in the new
photography section... this shot turned out pretty decent, considering that i'd never
shot a wedding before, and i'd never shot in b&w before either...
another change i made was to the background colour of tha 411 section... it was a really
nuclear neon green, but after some ppl complained, i changed it to a nice orange... i also chucked the section
banners, as ppl found them distracting...
7.22.2003 a to the w to the o to the l
sorry for the lack of updates... it just hasn't been a great week for doing anything. it's been bloody hot and
humid, and except for today's reprieve, it's just been too hot to do anything.
so a few tidbits of news... lyds and i have kinda started planning our
trip to the balkans... so far, we've only got a rough idea of the itinerary, and a flight to venice to start.
eh, i'm not particularly worried. we're gonna take things as they come.
jason's 31st bday was yesterday, so he threw a little dinner party at his place last night... it was nice. nina
cooked up a storm, and it was all really tasty, esp. her tiramisu. i'm not sure if it's not better than
mark's... we'll have to do a taste test or something... heheheh... anyways, happy birthday j! the big 3-1. wow.
deadly.
oh, my printer problem... it was the printer. i got my legal copy of win xp home from
minima and i installed it last week. loaded back up all my programs.
installed the printer software, no prob. installed the printer... no dice. didn't detect it.
so then i do a bit of my own testing... it's not the cable, cuz it works with my external cd burner. it's not
the usb port, cuz it works fine with other devices. it's not the software, cuz that installs just fine. and it
won't print a test page. heh. aight, so i returned it. i'll pick up another one later this week.
many apologies to those who are looking for new pics. maybe next time.
heh, leave it to me to say one thing and then go right ahead and do the other... so sue me. i decided to stay up
to post the pics from mark and minh's wedding. so there. no more complaints,
aight?
7.31.2003 wrong title... foto frenzy
you know, one of these days, i'm just gonna get bit by the journalling bug and then you won't be able to stop me
from journaling... but until then, i guess you're stuck with these random updates.
well, it's the end of july, and over half the year is gone... <sigh> where does the time go? clearly not
into anything productive...
a couple random notes... did i ever mention that a few ppl left? hanne (from my german class) went back to
denmark, heidi-marie (also from my german class) went to brazil for a big trip and then she's going back to
finland, and patricia went back to spain... things just aren't the same when ppl leave, out of your life like
that...
work's been pretty busy of late... this week was a lot of troubleshooting and support, both for regular tool
issues and also for the new tool release's acceptance test... so it's been a little hectic here and there, but
generally pretty good.
anyways, the next pics to come up will probably be canadian party pics... don't wanna leave it hanging for too
long...