On the Road Again

I'm going to be on the road again - after just getting two days of rest at home. I'll be updating through my mobile phone again.

Returned Home.. SAFELY

Just got in the door half an hour ago, and now I'm faced with piles of letters, bills, and so much e-mail it could choke me to death. In any case, I was *supposed* to arrive much earlier today. My flight was to arrive at 7:45pm. In short, one of my friends lost her passport (read: stolen) mere four hours before the flight and there was much panic and anxiety. I volunteered to stay behind and made sure that everyhing was taken care of. Within two hours, we filed a police report, cancelled credit cards, and replaced the passport at the consulate. Unfortunately, we missed the flight leaving for Toronto. It didn't seem likely that we would be leaving any time soon, because it seems that the flights are overbooked until June 1st. Luckily, a bit of persuasive talking with the sob story of my friend's little 'incident' got us seats on the next flight and here I am!

I guess I'll write more when I'm a little more awake. For now I'm terribly exhausted and in need of much sleep.

En Route - Chilling in London

As I have mentioned previously, I'm not doing too much in London these few days. Other than re-visiting all the sights that I have been, I'm taking it real easy. I'll be back this Friday, and I'm hoping to meet with some friends that night to share my travel stories. Although I don't think anybody is free to meet up with me..

En Route - Back in London

Sorry for the lack of updates for the past few days - I've been without any internet access for a couple days traveling across France. I just got back to London, and will be replying e-mails shortly. The travel journal will continue later when I get home. These few days in London will be nice and relaxing..

En Route - To Nice

I'm leaving Italy right now and on my way to Nice, France. It was pretty awesome at the disco last night. Didn't drink too much because there were too many ladies I have to take care of, but still quite fun nevertheless.

En Route - In Florence Part Three

Just had the best piece of steak, ever. Now we are rushing to the disco.. Will DEFINITELY update on that when I get a chance.

En Route - In Florence Part Two

Going to a 'disco' tonight. Supposedly the hot spot in Florence, so we shall see how that pans out.

En Route - In Florence

I arrived in Florence earlier today, and now am sitting in Piazza Della Signora waiting for the group for a walking tour of the city. We are only spending one day in Florence, as we will be leaving for Nice tomorrow. Hope the weather will stay this nice for the next couple of days.

En Route - In Rome Part Three

About to hit the sack, but thought I'd write and say that the Vatican City is really beautiful! It is a must-go destination even for non-religious people.

En Route - In Rome Part Two

Waiting in queue to enter the Vatican City at the moment. I've been standing here for about 30 minutes already. Went to a tour of the ancient Rome this morning and it was very impressive. Of course I took a lot of pictures while at it. Hopefully we can get inside soon.

En Route - In Rome

Having dinner with 'Team Asia' at a local eatery. It is awesome eating here! I haven't had such good pasta since Ottawa, and the pizza here is very.. Hmm.. Authentic. Excellent!

En Route - To Rome

On the couch now heading towards Rome! Should get there in about 6 hours. Looking forward to seeing all the historical ruins, as well as the famous sights.

En Route - In Venice

Chilling in the hotel after spending a whole day in Venice. It was really interesting cruising the canals in a Gondola, and looking at the artwork in the St. Mark's Cathedral. I also walked around and had dinner with some new friends. Tomorrow it's off to Rome!

En Route - Venice

Couldn't make any updates yesterday because there was no GPRS in Austria. Anyway, I am on my way into Venice right now. Went rafting yesterday, and today I will be doing a Gondola ride.

En Route - Mount Titlis

Right now I am walking to the cable car, taking us to the top of Mount Titlis. Although the weather doesn't look promising, it will be cool to see the rotary cable car.

En Route - In Switzerland

The hotel is awesome! It's the best we've had so far, and it's half way up the Swiss Alps! Tomorrow we are going up one of the mountains, on a rotary cable car. Hope the weather is good tomorrow!

En Route - Switzerland

Today we are off to Switzerland. Probably another couple of hours on the bus. No internet access yet, hopefully I can get a longer update soon.

En Route - Germany

On the couch right now, heading towards St. Goar. Spending the night in Germany. I will update when I hit am internet cafe.

Europe - Day 1 Amended

So now that I have found an internet cafe (thanks to my knowledge from previous work terms), I can explain the day in more detail in my usual redudent style of writing. First of all, to answer a comment from my dear friend, yes I was using my mobile phone to enter entries here. I love technology, and I use it to my advantage. :P

My friend Lisa was nice enough to pick me up from my place on Friday, in order for the minicab driver to take us to the airport. Am I glad I didn't have to drive to the airport! There was a massive traffic jam towards the airport. I didn't realize that I was going to take off from the New Terminal 1! It looked just like the airport in Hong Kong when it was first built - unfinished, very futuristic looking, and HUGE.

After bypassing the line for checking in (once again, thanks to technology, ExpressCheckIn works very well), and paying $9.09 for a turkey sandwich that was soggy, we were at the gate waiting for departure. As mentioned before, babies crying and airplane food filled our times on the airplane. Lucky for me, Big Fish was the movie of choice on the aircraft - just as I saw it two days ago. Not a big deal, I watched it again and I was tearing, again. At least I know it's a definite DVD purchase!

At the airport, we waited for Amy and Lorene as they took a later flight than we did. It is not exactly helpful when none of us has seen them or know them personally - they were friends of my friend's sister. But when two chinese girls walk out with big suitcases from the London Heathrow airport, then it is obvious we have the right people. (I cheated, I have met Amy briefly a couple of days prior to our departure)

The trek to London was an interesting one - the feeling of familarity on the tube, mixed with the anticipation of the trip with seven other people. On the tube, I was thinking about the four months I spent here and how much I really missed the place. It was a good feeling to know everything that's going around, and helping my otherwise clueless friends along.

Finally met up with Priscilla and Lorraine at the Contiki Basement, then we walked around London a bit after eating McD's. Oxford Street was obviously their choice of an 'eventful' afternoon. I am guessing that it will be the destination of choice once we return to London - they have already picked out their favourite stores and Lisa already wanted to buy this white handbag!

After dinner, I went out with Lorraine, Amy, and Lorene for a little tour of Soho. The rest of them got too tired and went back to the hotel. I took them around the 'usual' places I hung out at while I was in London, went into "All Bar One" for a little bit of drinking. I introduced them to "Strongbow" - and they loved it. We left a little bit past midnight because the bars all closed at 11:00pm, one of my annoyances with London's nightlife.

This takes us to Day 2 of the Europe trip.. which I will continue when I have a little bit of time. I bought a notepad to jot down little details throughout the trip, so hopefully I won't forget anything when I'm writing my travel journal next time.

Europe - Day 1

Didn't do much word after checking into the hotel today. We went to Oxford St. and the girls had a blast while the guys stood around. Went to the Soho area after dinner for a pint with some of the girls. Right now we are on board the couch, waiting for departure. More to follow.

Arrived in London

After sitting through babies crying and lots of airplane food, I have arrived at the Heathrow airport. Right now we are waiting for some people from a later flight, and I am getting used to blogging from my mobile phone. After this we are meeting up with Priscilla in central London.

Off I go!

Heading to meet my friends before going to the airport. I will make small updates as my journey continues..

Still packing..

You know, it is almost 4am and I am still packing my bags. Somethings just don't change..

Just 18 more hours..

I cannot believe I am actually going back to Europe again! This is just surreal.. in a couple of hours, I'll be on board a plane and going back to one of my favourite cities (I haven't been to many, so bear with me there) in Europe. Then I'll be traveling with some friends for about three weeks, snapping lots of photographs, and writing in my travel journal.

Today I met up with my friend's sister again, just to hang out a bit more and walk around the shopping mall. I had to return a duffle bag from MEC because it wasn't allowed on the tour, and so I'll be using my trusty old suitcase.. which actually has been with me to many places around the world. Perhaps I need to keep a travel log of my belongings too.. because it's pretty amazing that my shoes has been in England, France, Brussels, and the Netherlands.. not to mention Canada and the US! Hehehe.. my backpack, however, takes the crown because it has traveled with me everywhere.

During my trip I will continue to blog throughout, thanks to modern technology. Oh how I love the technology..

Big Fish

*sniff*

I cried towards the end of the movie. It's true, I have eye witnesses that can prove my display of the sensitive me. Not that I'm particularly proud of that, but thought I'd write it down so in a couple of years, maybe I'll laugh at myself for doing so in front of so many people. I wonder if my teenage friend thinks less of me now - haha, who am I kidding, I doubt she had much 'respect' for me in the first place. I recall how I was when I was her age, and trust me, NOBODY was on my respect list, I owned the world at that point.

Back to the movie, it gets a highly recommended from me. It's quite an artsy movie - no action, a bit of humour, a whole lot of truth, depth, and inspiration. I think it takes somebody with a bit of life experience to truly enjoy the movie, and what each person gets out of the movie is very different. Actually it goes for a lot of films out there too. What you take away from the two hours of moving pictures, may be different than what the person sitting next to you feel, and it probably differs from the person sitting on the other side of you also. Not giving any of the plot or ideas away of this movie, but I must say that each action and each scene shown in the movie has its significance.. every word uttered by the characters meant a lot. High school English teachers would LOVE this movie, because even I can tear apart a whole bunch of metaphors and symbolisms.. and you know, teachers love that stuff.

Imagine, a theatre-full of people, having individual thoughts throughout the movie.. but yet, having watched one single movie, with the same plot, same dialogue, and the same ending. How intriguing..

Babysitting

Hung out with a très-chic teenager today. My friend asked me to 'babysit' her younger sister whom just arrived from some city out west (they're all the same anyway, haha). I call it 'chillaxing with a cool kid', which is a lot better than just 'babysitting'. Although we were almost born a decade apart, I find much similarity in her than with a lot of people my own age. Perhaps I've always been a kid at heart, never wanting to grow up and take on the responsibilities of the adult life.

We went school hunting for her today, then took her out to lunch. Afterwards, we did a bit of shopping.. and now we're at my house, with my other friends, and we're about to watch a movie.

Road trip!!!

Not really. A bunch of us just drove to a nearby mall in a nearby country for some minimal shopping (more like walking around because we have nothing better to do).. then hit the casino where Adrian once again demonstrated his abilities to turn losses into break-even situations and then win some more. I truly experienced the thrill of losing a ton of money (okay, only about $80CDN) within minutes, and gain it all back AND SOME MORE within the next half an hour. Reminds me of the time when Adrian was down $50USD, made all his wager on a single 1:2 bet, and broke even.

It was pretty cool hanging out with people and doing crazy things. Too bad we didn't take that many pictures because I was mostly sleeping throughout the day. Hahaha..

It's 11pm, do you know where your children are?

What little bit of hope that MAYBE I will be called tonight for the second round of auditions.. well, it did not happen. I doubt it takes 5 hours to call everybody on the list for the second round.

Watched "Cruel Intentions" with a bunch of friends at my house. A few protested after the movie (actually, most of them).. citing reasons from the fact that it is not realistic to their disgust in the treatment of sex in the movie. I really enjoy this movie - after all, I have watched it 39 times already (and counting!). I find the movie very intriguing, and there is nothing wrong with watching good-looking people on the big screen. My point is, a movie is just what it is meant to be - a movie. Watch it, enjoy it, reflect on it. It doesn't mean to, nor is it intend to, be a reflection of anything remotely resembling reality. We have enough 'reality' to deal with in our own lives, thank you very much.

Shattered Glass, Broken Spirit

Today I went for an audition - the one I wrote about in my earlier entry. As I gave one of my best performances in front of a full panel of judges, I couldn't help but feel inadequate compared to the other contestants in the same session. It is quite clear that people that attended the audition must be somewhat confident about their singing abilities, but little did I realize that I am not very prepared for this kind of 'reality-check'. I must have been ranked the lowest in my session.

The call-back is tomorrow after 6pm. I suppose I can safely turn off my phone, knowing that I won't be missing anything.

Oh well, it was a fun experience nevertheless.