a few wks back, easyjet had a sale.  realizing that i had to go somewhere for easter, i looked for the cheapest destination, which was amsterdam.  bought a one-way ticket this time tho, with the aim to travel back by train - the way ppl used to travel around europe before the discount airlines!  i'v seen a fair bit of urban europe, need to see more of rural europe (still haven't been to tuscany or provence, for example).

 

i had a guidebook.  but where in the countryside should i go?  so many choices.  so this is where the unesco world heritage site list was helpful (after this trip i'm closing in on 10% - read my earlier post on my unesco hunting).  some turned out to be a great idea, like the kinderdijk windmills, but others left me wondering, how the frig can that be considered of importance to *world* heritage, like the little palace in bruehl.

 

aside from the unesco sites, the other main countryside siteseeing  was the flower fields of holland.  didn't realize that it was this time of year until after i bought the ticket!  so i decided that i had to check out the flowers - and i ended up renting a bike for half a day.  refused to go to the kuchenhof - not paying €11 just to battle off tourists to try to see flowers.. much rather do my own flower-field finding trip.  and it was great!

 

on my way south, wanted to hit Gouda - which apparently doesn't rhyme with 'buddha', but more like 'chowder' with a boston accent. and the 'g' is more like a really throaty 'h'.  anyways, the train trajectory wouldn't have worked/made sense.  so i continued on to kinderdijk, with the 18 or so windmills, with the sun low on the horizon.. that was beautiful.

 

spent the second nite in antwerp (first nite, wed nite, was in amsterdam, landed in the late afternoon).  while rural netherlands turned out to be what i had thot switzerland would be like - clean, quaint, architecturally harmonious buildings - belgium was, all of a sudden, much more dirty and gritty.  antwerp, outside of the old town, was dirty in parts, fairly run down for the most part, with quite a few dodgy-looking areas.  the newly renovated train station looked super modern tho, and nicely blended with the old shell of the building.

 

3rd nite, in cologne.  got to see it in a more normal state, and not during carnival like my last trip there.  then made my way to stuttgart for the 4th nite before coming back.  originally was going to cut thru the black forest and come back via basel, but because i was enjoying my appel strudel with ice cream and big cup of coffee in the sunshine a little too much, i missed my train. lol  so ended up skirting the black forest, cutting thru rottweil, of the dog's fame, and entering switzerland in schaffhausen.

 

and actually, there was a 5th nite - from schaffhausen, i went to lausanne for a 8-hr party-til-dawn layover. :))  finally hopped into bed close to 11am.  that must be a record, even for me. needless to say, the rest of easter monday was spent in bed. hehe

 

 

at the urging of hye, who also just turned 29, i'm updating my blog.  (hey fyi, i'm VERY busy at work.  tho it's true i don't normally 'work' at work, i have only 2 weeks left (yay!!) so i do have to put in a bit of an effort to produce something.  and i usually use 'work' time to prepare my english lesson plans, or plan my vacations, or do homework, research on various pertinent topics on wikipedia and imdb, etc etc..)  but since i'v been reading up on her turning 29, guess i should do the same. :)

 

so, on turning 29.

 

not a big deal really.  turning the big 3-0 is probably gonna be rough.  but then again, 25 wasn't a big deal at all for me.  27 was for some reason (i have my theories).  so the last 2 wkends i'v been proving to myself that i'm still young enuf to party hardy.  but, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, oh lordy, i paid for it yesterday.  had to override my aching body to get my ass out of bed to start cleaning the apartment (inspection on tuesday) and to do homework.  could not have been prouder of myself if i had climbed mt everest.

 

so what of these party weekends?

 

this past weekend:

friday nite - had a 'potence' dinner, whereby chunks of meat are served on a spiky thing dangling from a metal contraption (will have pix on my flickr site soon, but for now, google image 'potence viande') and set on fire.  flaming meat on a chain, how could i refuse?? lol  after that, was a farewell party for another intern saira, then dragged my friend sophia's sorry ass out of the house to go to shakers.  left fairly early, got to bed around 4.

saturday - woke up.. too early, to head into town to meet up with tensin and eric and their friend jolene to head to the mountains.  snow wasn't the best but was still pretty decent.  realized that this may be the last time i'm in the mtns this season so i went a bit crazy, fell hard a few times - made worse after a lunch that consisted of a few pounds of melted cheese.  but it was a super gorgeous day.  got home, tried to nap but only got in an hr's worth, then headed over to jason and dave's for a pre-party, and within their friend's entourage was.. 'someone from my past', let's just say.  so the party was great, but i was too tired to enjoy it as much.  got to bed a little bit after 6.

 

which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that i had a busy week and didn't get to recoup from the wkend before:

friday nite - opening of 'lady godiva pub' where mike is business partner but not part owner?  not sure about the arrangement.. anyhow, big huge opening party, lots of ppl i hadn't seen in a while, a few ppl i didn't particularly want to see, and met a few cool ppl that hopefully will get to hang out with more in the future.

saturday - woke up SUPER early to catch my 30 min tram ride to place des nation to catch the fucking 7.30am ski bus with the international ski club of gva!  did the bus leave on time?  no.  did the driver drive fast?  hell no!  did we arrive at the slope early? no.  fuck fuck fuck!  but anyway, it was a fantastic day, cuz it'd been snowing 2 days straight, and there was fresh pow to be had!!  i found this one mountain with only 1 slow double chair, and stayed there for a couple of hours carving up the powder (not exactly fresh trax but still, only substantial powder day i'v had since i left canada).  then realized that i had to make my way back to the bus on an empty stomcah (went straight thru lunch), and riding on fresh snow after a quiet season and having not done it for a while was extremely tiring.  i barely made it back to the bus in time.  but did everyone else get back to the the bus on time?  no.  did the bus leave even close to on time?  no.  swiss precision my arse.  had time to basically rush home, shower, change, then head to my joint birthday party with greg and rachel.  and it was a girl sarah's farewell as well (met her once at a pub crawl, bumped into her at fnac just days before).

 

the party: it was awesome! i don't (or didn't) normally celebrate my birthday, but since last year when i organized my own party and had lots of fun, i decided to make it big (hence the joint party) and invited almost everyone.  i'm swearing by joint parties now.. you're surrounded by ppl you already know but you also get to meet so many new ppl who you know cannot be THAT scary/creepy/crazy cuz they're your friend's friends.  i got there (lady godiva, again, 2 nites in a row - booked that place precisely because of the mike connection) early to help set up, but no one was there, and mike was busy in the kitchen prepping the finger foods (which tasted and looked great!  damn my camera and its dead battery.. annalisa took a few pix, but only of ppl so they'll be on my flickr site soon).  at that time everyone in the pub was watching the soccer match, and there were a couple of tables of random ppl eating in the reserved area.  was on the verge of flipping out.. where was everyone?!  but shortly after 9 ppl started showing up, including greg and the supplies, and it was all good.  lots of ppl showed up, felt a bit bad that i wasn't able to flutter around more to spend enuf time with everyone, but believe me, i appreciated everyone who came!!  especially the ones who kept on shoving beers in my face. lol  was pretty tipsy by the time i got to shakers, and almost as soon as i walked in ulli gave me a shaker full of alcohol, and that did it for me.  didn't get ill, so (pardon the econo-talk) it was a 'soft landing' in terms of my super dunkenness. lol

 

my present haul: fnac gift certs (from different ppl, so maybe i was spotted all those times i thot i was book/cd/movie browsing by myself), chocolate, homemade yummy 'almond burfi', a scarf, more chocolate, cash (a boy's best friend!), a dvd, herbal tea..  so thank you thank you thank you, to all of you who read this.

 

on the nite of THE day itself - it was my officemate bjorn's farewell, and also a few other interns weren't able to go to my party so i celebrated with them at alhambar.  got a UN coffee mug and nescafe gold deluxe instant coffee (inside joke), so that was very cool.  and bjorn also gave me a beer that said 'lagerbier hell'.  apparently 'hell' means light in german.  in any case, it was very good (for you see, he's from munich, ie. bavaria, ie. oktoberfest, ie. beer in their blood, ie...).  so if that's hell, then maybe i should convert to christianity (cuz god knows i'm going to hell anyway! lol)

 

so voilà.  aside from the partying and the snowboarding, been fairly busy at work, 'work', school, and looking for but (so far still) not applying for jobs.  and another farewell - for will from forgot-the-name-of-the-town, ontario, who's now in china.  so that was a bit sad even tho i didn't hang out with him that regularly.  and it was also nice to catch up with our mutual canadian friends.  and i guess just lots of catching up in general with ppl i hadn't talked to in a while.  shouting superficial pleasantries over loud music at a party is one thing, sitting down over coffee/beer/lunch and having a real talk, that's another thing.  but a very very time consuming thing at that.  and maybe that's an age thing, but seems that as i get older, quality is overruling quantity.  i'v gotten good at 'quantity', but 'quality' i need to work on.  and to work on finding time to work on.

 

and seeing as how i still haven't found the space-time-continuum pause button, i will have to be more anti-social and focus more on life.  wait, that sounds familiar.. oh yeah, my new year's resolution, that had kinda fallen by the wayside.  but interesting how reflections on rolling into 2007 came to the same conclusion as reflections on rolling into 29.

 

hmm, consistency.  maybe that's another sign that i'm growing up?