5.5.2004 may showers bring...?
ever hear that joke that goes something like, "if april showers bring may flowers, what do may flowers bring?"
i think the punchline was "hayfever"... well, that's only partially true for me here, cuz while it's the bloomin'
flowers which bring the hayfever, it happens in april, not may. now i have less hayfever symptoms and this bad
nagging cough which the doc says is related to my asthma... boo.
anyways... one-third of 2004 is already passed. can you believe that? it's crazy i say. plus the fact that so
much, yet so little has happened in the last few weeks where i was occupying the ditch...
on the one hand, work has been the same old, same old. on the other hand... fatti left last weekend. her time
here was up and she took like 6 weeks vacation off (saved up from her work down under)... we partied it up the
last night she was here, as it also happened to be april 30, which is the tanz in den mai
(dance in [the month of] may) night, so there were parties happening all over... now she's in london, chilling
out for the next little while... cool beans.
i'll be seeing her again soon though, if not the weekend i go to london to see
michael (have i mentioned that he's in europe now? in athens, to be
exact? and that he's not coming to visit me?), then a couple weeks after that, as we'll be going to visit prague
together... sweet!
btw, it's probably well-known now that canadians require a visa to get into the czech republic, probably the main
reason i haven't gone yet... well, i went to the czech embassy in bonn to apply for
the visa... i swear, the embassy or consulate or whatever, it's in the middle of freakin' nowhere. i don't have
a clue why the place is so inaccessible. so glad i rented a car for that purpose...
but i got the visa just fine, and now my passport, which i got renewed only last april, is already full up to
page 16. that's nutty! add in the stamps i'll get going to london again, plus mallorca, plus the visas and
stamps i'll get for hk and china later this year, and it's possible i'll need a new passport before 2004 is over!
how deadly is that?!?
so what else has happened... went out to dinner with breda at this fancy italian place... it was really good, the
food was excellent, and the ambience was really nice, save the live piano guy who seemed to have a mic but the
vocals coming from the speaker sounded totally piped in and not live... but otherwise, really good, though
pricey too... afterwards, we hit up an irish pub here, the wild rover, to meet up with some ppl for a work
colleague's bday... good fun, esp. with breda egging on the guitar guy... :P
also scored a gmail account, courtesy of
maxima, who so graciously offered one of his 2 invites to me...
unfortunately, steven.wong was already taken (what are the odds of that?), but my bro was still able to score
michael.wong, the lucky bum... so i resorted to the usual standby, and if you can't figure that out...
anyways, enough writing for today... quick straw vote on the next pics to post: email me (if you know me, you'll
know my email already) if you want me to post pics from japan, the balkans or random pics with ppl (like here in
aachen or in toronto)...
well, would ya look at that. two consecutive entries. not bad. and with some pics to boot, i might add...
fatti and me at jason's karneval party
aight, totally random pics coming up. actually, no one wrote me for any picture requests, but i figure i'll get
these done, out of the way so they don't nag at me like the balkans pics do... hahaha...
so this is fatima (aka fatti) and me at jason's karneval party in february. i know, it's a
little out of date, but bear with me on this, eh? fatti is the australian girl
i wrote about yesterday... i actually look decent here too (see
below)...
albert (left) and anup, partying it up
so what's karneval, you ask? well, you know about mardi gras in new orleans, and carnivale in
rio de janeiro? yeah, same thing. same festival actually... ppl getting dressed up (sorta like adult halloween)
and partying like mad, like albert and anup vividly display in this picture here... if you're wondering about the
costumes, the theme was tange und tequila, which translates into "thongs and tequila"... not a
bad mix, eh?
jason, me and chris (l to r) (pic courtesy of fatima gunnoo)
there were tons of ppl there... i think there were at least 100 ppl there. i never did hear an official count,
but it was even more packed than our canadian party last year...
it might appear that i'm blasted here, like jason is, but actually, the party was held the day i got back from
that ski trip to austria, so my eyes are slit-like cuz i'm freakin' tired... i mean, i didn't draw on my face
with a permanent marker (though word has it, jason did that when he was sober :P)...
chris and me
there was some pretty heavy canadian content at this party actually... in addition to chris, jason and myself,
there was a group of canadian visitors from the ericsson location in montreal (sophie, another albert, yang,
maybe some others), and tamara, who's half-canadian, was there too... sorry, no pics of them from that night,
though sophie is hosting a pancake night this friday... maybe i'll get some pics there...
fatti and me again (pic courtesy of fatima gunnoo)
anyways, it was a good party, since i didn't go home until like... 4am? something like that... it was gthba, for
sure... even if i was mega-tired. like i am right this moment... so, in the interest of waking up at a decent
time tomorrow morning, i'm gonna stop writing here... hope y'all enjoyed the pics... hopefully i'll get around to
the other pics i wanna post soon... cheers!
you'd think my world had ended or something. well, nosireebob, i'm alive and well. just taking a little time
off from the whole journalling thing, even though there's so much to say.
in the time that i've been away, we've had, in no particular order: mother's day, a retreat to some place in the
middle of nowhere with the smd groups from aachen and düsseldorf, an awesome
ethiopian restaurant in köln, sophie's pancake night, a trip to ikea with angie, a 1t412 bible study, a few
movies (starsky & hutch,
kill bill vol. 2, and
troy), etc.
not sure if i'll ever get around to posting about any of that... maybe it's best i just left it at that, and try
not to let it bother me. i've even got a stack of pics ready to post... just gotta get around to coding for
them.
well, it'll have to wait until after mallorca. if you need a reminder, jason, chris and i are travelling
together one last time before chris leaves germany... and we're headed to (hopefully) sunny mallorca! it's a
small spanish island in the mediterranean sea, for those of you not in the know. we've got flights, a car, an
apartment... all we need is us to be there!
anyhoo. enough writing. time for sleep.
alright, i'm feeling charitable. here's another batch of pics, these ones from my trip to toronto in march...
click here for more pics...
home sweet home... the toronto skyline
so i went back to toronto for no real reason other than to visit. well, the clincher was that the ticket was
really cheap at this time. i was originally thinking about mid-june, to attend
my bro's convocation, but alas, the tix for that time were almost
double the price... sorry mike.
matt and steph, chowing down on pancakes and maple syrup
ok, so normally i don't have ppl coming with me, but this time was a bit different... i mean, it's not the best
time to visit cuz it's just so much nicer in summer, but i guess if you have a tour guide, it just makes it that
much better.
so what actually happened is that i was at starbucks with some church
friends after service one sunday, and we started talking about vacations or something like that, and i mentioned
that i was going home in march. christian, having spent a year in rochester with a host family there, was
immediately interested and actually kinda joked about coming along.
steph, in front of the american falls
well, being the good host i am, i just invited christian to actually come and visit with me. stefanie, hearing
all this, thought it was so cool, and of course, i just tossed the invitation to her too. christian said he had
to ask his boss for time off work and steph had to check flights and such, but both seemed pretty interested.
andrew, steph, matt, karen, me, lyds, mike (l to r)
well, i dunno about you, but even when ppl throw out these blanket invitations, you don't normally expect ppl to
take you up on it, right? i mean, it's sincere, but it just never happens... timing, money, lack of real
interest, whatever... they just don't usually work out. well, this time it did.
wing and baby tyler
steph was so excited, she went straight home after starbucks and looked for flights... and actually found one the
price as mine! so after making me call my folks to confirm it was coolz, which it of course was, she booked the
ticket and that's that. christian, on the other hand, was told that it was "highly recommended" that he stay at
work for the month of march... doh.
anyhoo, steph came and hit up all the big touristy things, like niagara
falls, the cn tower, and that oh-so-yummy
maple syrup festival at bronte
creek...
unfortunately, all this sightseeing stuff took away from some things i wanted to do... like watch some movies,
see certain ppl, even eat at congee wong! can you believe
that?!? i didn't even eat at congee wong. how retarded is that. well, at least i got to see wing and hoang's
new baby, tyler... i was hoping they'd go for a more unique name, like stirling, or laquincy, but no. :P
mom, me, dad (l to r)
anyways, still nice to be back, see my mom and dad, mike, all the friends i managed to see... the pho, the sushi,
the massive alaskan king crab, trastevere's veal chop... ok, i'm hungry now. hahaha... aight, time to finish
this sucker up, since i'm leaving for mallorca in about 4.5 hours. maybe i can even catch a little sleep!
lates...
5.24.2004 i still don't know the mallorca song
mallorca was great. chris, jason and i had so much fun. the weather cooperated mostly, though it was a bit
cloudy the last couple days... but still, good temps (25-27 degrees)... and the beaches were fantastic. the best
beaches i've been to since i've moved to europe. the best since i went to north carolina...
almost completely sandy, with a couple patches of gravelly areas... fine beige sand, not the whiter sand in the
caribbean, but still really nice... little to no waves though, which i didn't like so much, cuz i love to jump
waves, but good if you're a swimmer like chris...
anyways, we had a great time, just hanging out, having good food, going out to party... got some pretty good
pics, some great memories, and even better stories, but alas, as it is in vegas... what happens in mallorca,
stays in mallorca... :P i'll post up some pics though, no worries...
i revamped the photography pages to make it a bit easier to navigate. it took me a
while to figure out how to get this going, but i actually don't know why it works like this... i still can't
seem to master the xhtml and css, but i got the effect i wanted (mostly) and it works for ie6, netscape 7 and
opera, so i ain't gonna complain.