6.15.2005 it's gonna be a lovely day, a lovely day... a lovely day!
and so goes another couple weeks... i have to give a shout-out to all the random people who are
hitting up this website. i have no idea why you're coming here... maybe you're looking up pictures of
barcelona or copenhagen or something, but seriously, according to my counter stats, i'm getting hits
from ppl all over the planet, from japan to australia, to the east and west coasts of north america...
and occasionally i get hits from eastern europe (gmt+2), and i'm pretty sure i don't know anyone in
this time zone...
palacio de comunicaciones in madrid
click here for more madrid pics
anyways, for those not in the know, i'm posting most of my pics now on
flickr which is a sweet online photo-sharing site. andrew... the
other andrew... andrew ma... the other andrew ma... from nycbc... the other andrew ma from nycbc...
yeah, that's him, minima... yeah, he hooked me up with a pro
account so now i'm posting pics with glee... or at least, it seems like it compared to posting here...
the latest set is from my madrid
pics...
anyways, king's college london finally sent me their offer last
week... it was dated may 25, but i didn't get it until last tuesday, almost 2 weeks later... that's
unfathomable within europe cuz stuff usually takes only a day or two... well, whatever. i posted
my acceptance back to kcl, so it's a done deal... have to sweat the details now, but yeah, i'm on
my way... so all you ppl who said you would visit me when i first moved here but haven't... this is
your last chance! i'm in the coolest city in europe! you better get here! no, i'm not bitter at
all... :P
and last but certainly not least, my sweetie steph is coming to visit me tomorrow! well, later
today... and she's staying until sunday! woot! we're gonna just chill most of the time, i think,
spend as much time together as possible... and on sunday, we're having a little ol' reunion-ish
dinner at fasika, this great ethiopian restaurant in köln... good stuff! can't wait!
oh yes, one more thing... happy one-month anniversary, sweetie!
6.22.2005 it's a beautiful day, don't let it get away
well, in just over 12 hours, i'm gonna start my journey to dublin to visit breda and her roommate
elaine, see matt for the first time in 16 months, and, oh
yeah, see u2 in concert on saturday night! woot!
so this is just a quick update before i head off... don't wanna leave myself with too much to update
again...
steph's visit was really nice, we spent every possible minute together... she met most of my peeps
here in aachen, so that was coolz... everyone likes her, thinks she's fantastic... in fact, even ppl
who don't know her think so. witness:
*nige-so here we are says: Hey man
*nige-so here we are says: how're you?
Steven Wong says: yo
Steven Wong says: good man
*nige-so here we are says: who's the girl?
Steven Wong says: my gf
Steven Wong says: steph
*nige-so here we are says: AWESOME!
*nige-so here we are says: she's hot dude
*nige-so here we are says: good stuff
hahaha, deadly.
anyways, we didn't do too much... went out for a nice italian dinner for our one-month anniversary,
went to see the italy-canada match at the
world youth
championships (u20) in kerkrade... dismal match by the canadian team, they were just outclassed
everywhere on the pitch. oh wellz... and on sunday night, we got to meet up with some old friends
so it was good times.
anyhoo, it's late, i still have to pack, so i'm off...
6.30.2005 thursday bloody thursday
i really did want to go to bed now, but i felt like i really had to post something about dublin
before i let it slide too much...
so everything worked out perfectly fine getting to dublin... all the trains and buses were on
time and the flight was even early! by 35 minutes! unreal. so i met up with
matt at the airport, good to see him again after so
long... breda came not too long after and then we went back to her place...
matt and me, in front of breda's door
basically, for the next 2 days, we didn't do very much. oh, there was a bit of sightseeing,
walking around the city centre area of dublin... st. stephen's green, temple bar, trinity
college, you know, the usual... but matt and i were supremely lazy, and seeing as how i'd been
there before, i really didn't care... so mostly it was just walking, eating, and pubbing. good
stuff.
also watched batman begins and
mr. and mrs. smith... both were good,
entertaining flicks, but batman begins was really worth the price of admission. i know, you're
thinking, you went to dublin and then you went to watch movies? hey, it's my vacation and i'll
do what i want. plus, do you know how great it is to have such a sweet selection of movies
played in english with no other language subtitles? trust me.
we also met a bunch of breda's friends... most notably elaine, her roommate, and chris, a friend
of hers from her promotions gig who is unbelievably hilarious. seriously, from the irish slang
to his non-sweaty, backhand high five, the guy is total jokes. definitely looking forward to
chillin' with him again...
matt, chris and me, after russell's
one of the pub occasions was at this place called russell's in ranelagh, a suburby area just
outside the main centre area of dublin... there's a second-floor terrace that overlooks the
street, and we were sitting there with a bunch of chris' friends and other people, when the
local police (aka gardai (but pronounced gar-dee)) pulled over some guy.
well, irish people are all about good craic (pronounced crack) and before
you know it, someone starts chanting "you're screwed and you know you are" to the tune of the
pet shop boys' song "go west"... you had to be there. and that's not even going into the old
guy who more or less tried to buy breda for the night with his credit card... :P
u2's massive stage for their vertigo tour
anyways, i know what you're thinking, what about the concert? basically, it was awesome.
but if i must use more words... it was really awesome. seriously. just the feeling of being
in u2's hometown, jumping up and down with about 80,000 other
people, belting out "sunday bloody sunday" at the top of your lungs... it just doesn't get
any better than that.
bono, dwarfed by his stage
what's incredible is that about 30 minutes in, bono pulls up this girl from the front row in
mid-song and sings to her... she's like hugging him the entire time... crazy. what's even
more unbelievable is that during the encore set, this canadian guy gets pulled out from the
front row and gets to play with the band! bono was like, this is the power
of advertising... so the guy was like carrying some sign that apparently said that he would
play a certain song with them... and bono actually took him up on it! he also asked the guy
if he wanted to play or sing and the guy wisely chose to play... man, seriously, that is
ca-ray-zee. i can't even begin to fathom how nervous i'd be in a situation like that...
it was just a sweet concert. a few songs from the new album, a lot of classics... and it's
amazing how much they left out. no "with or without you", no "discotheque", no "desire",
etc... but still worth the 65 euros, fo sho.
anyways, getting back here was another thing... we were magged (irish for drunk) after going
out after the concert, so we took our time getting up... met up with marco and natasha for a
bite, only to realize i was probably gonna be late to the airport... and i was. missed my
flight. my only recourse was to buy another ticket... thankfully, it was only 60 euros, but
it was going to a different airport (frankfurt hahn, that hole), but i thought i could catch
the bus back to cologne at least... which i did, but i didn't get to the hbf until 1:15am, after
the last train to aachen... so what did i do? i found a nice bench area on platform 9 to sleep
on and waited until the first train at 5:15... and then caught a couple hours more sleep here
and there. i'm still tired from all that... but it was all worth it in the end.
more pics to be posted on flickr soon, plus
an update on school plans...