What A Crappy Weather

Saturday, 23 Oct : It has been gloomy, rainy since this morning and mind you, I was wide awake already at 8am shucks...not sure why since today is a weekend. I should be still in bed snoozing, having wonderful dreams, etc but no my biological clock inside me just went 'ting', time to wake up at 8am aarrrghh.. So I did and sitting in front of my laptop looking out at the windows....all gray and rainy :( :( Brilliant to start your Saturday morning. After several hours, it's still raining out there....our plans are to go to the city and perhaps hit the market but not in this crappy weather. We SHOULD be in Florence today walking around the city with 20 degrees and the sun shining happily!! Instead, we're stuck at home with this crappy weather.

Tomorrow at 03:00, the Daylight Saving Time (DST) will change to winter time. We just have to remember to change the time in all our clocks at home, watches, etc.

There goes our weekend trip

At this precise time, my Hubs and I would be walking around the city of Pisa, doing some sightseeing, etc but nope, we are back home. Our whole weekend trip went down the drain because the Italians decided to choose this day to have a national strike. All flights flying in/out to/from Italy will be delayed or cancelled. In our case, our flight were cancelled! When the Italians decided to have a national strike, they mean business. All public transportation in Italy came to a halt.

We woke up very early morning to drive to Brussels Charleroi airport to catch our flight at 10:30am. We both were looking forward to this trip especially me, I have not been to Italy. We got there after braving through the horrendous traffic in Brussels and another one in Charleroi area and finally we'd arrived at the airport. We dropped off our luggage, got our boarding gate number and was going through the security check, when the announcement came simultaneously. Our flight was cancelled! I thought that guy doing the security check was kidding cos he was scanning our boarding pass and we were about to pass through the customs, etc. Shucks!! So what happened next?! We were send off to enquire and ended up at the airline ticket counter, waiting for an hour or so for our turn. There were many people like us in the queue getting flights changed, refund, etc.

While waiting for our turn, my Hubs decided to collect our luggage and we were told they could not locate our bag and we have to go to 'Lost and Found' counter to try our luck. After such news, we decided to sort out our tickets first (a full refund) then deal with our luggage later. Meanwhile, I had to cancel our hotel booking and hopefully we will also get our full refund without any penalties.

Gosh, it was such an exhausting, disappointing morning for us. We wasted first half of the day just driving, queuing and in the end no weekend trip for us. Though we were very near to Brussels about after such an ordeal earlier, we decided to head home, had a quick breakfast at the airport and start our journey back. *sob*sob*sob* Better luck for me next time to visit the beautiful city of Florence, Pisa....

Taboo Game

Yesterday, my Hubs and I had a birthday cum housewarming party in Amsterdam. It was a small gathering with less than 20 people. The guests were divided into 2 groups: one with the locals which was the host's family and family friends and the other group was the hostess's colleagues and us.

It was in fact a nice evening with some chatting, eating, oh the hostess made such great sushis, it was finished in no time! and cocktail drinking, playing board games - Taboo. For those who doesn't know this game, it's a word guessing game. The object of the game is for a player to have their team member(s) guess the word on their card without using the word itself or five additional words listed on the card. You can imagine the fun of struggling to describe the word without using the most obvious words to describe it. I missed playing these kind of game, when I was back in Malaysia, occasionally board games were played in the family parties and Pictionary is one of my favourites! The objective is the same as the Taboo game, but instead of using words, one has to draw it out. It was definitely a fun game!! It's funny to see how each person think differently in communicating via drawing!

A new Car

Finally, we went and did it! We got ourselves our very own car, though it is a second hand and very well-maintained one. It is a Volkswagen Polo :) :) In fact, the size is just nice for me ;). It's a nice feeling to know that I'm mobile now...totally independent hmm...just that have to update the navigation CD in the car...not sure if I'm confident enough to drive it to another city esp to new areas :P. Though traffic is horrendous here but at least I know I'm not out in the cold waiting for the train/tram, worrying about what if the train breaks down, will I be able to find another way back, etc. It's getting cold now with more rain, wind, etc so I'm very glad that I have this little car to keep me warm during shitty weather. However, we're officially 'bankrupt'....but is it worth it? For now, it is!!

MIA

I've been missing in blogging for awhile as things here were a bit crazy...geeez didn't realised I was actually stop blogging since end of September wow. But then again...work was extremely busy...was sick for a week...my girlfriend came visiting...and just like that, few weeks have gone by so fast.

Now, I hope so now and then I get to sit down and put my thoughts in this blog before the travelling starts *sheepish* Next weekend, my Hubs and I are off to Pisa/Florence for a short weekend break hooray!! As usual, totally so looking forward to it. Thereafter, the following weekend, I'll be travelling but this time for work for a couple of days in Middle East and break for a week, and another business travel for a week. Talk about stretching my self thin..these few months will be it. My body needs some major pampering and recuperation. The next long break for me will be year end with Christmas and New Year's.

The best part of having a gf over to visit is our plan for the entire duration of the her trip will be packed out. Every day/evening, there will be plans and especially on weekends. This is more so since I've started working and being a tour guide is only available during weekends. Nevertheless, I sure had a good time when my gf was here last week despite all the late nights even on weekdays and all the walking in the weekends. In a way, it was quite relaxing as she was not one of those that likes to visit all the touristic places ;) Honestly, I'm still recuperating....

Extended!

I've finally gotten my contract extension...was informed by my boss the other day to raise a form to proceed with the process of my contract extension which apparently take a looong process *rolling my eyes* On top of that, the extension should be for another 4 months but because the year budget ends Dec 2009, my extension is until December and then in January, I have to raise another form for another 2 months to make up the extension of 4 months. Sigh, talk about efficiency. Everything you have to do it yourself in this organisation and hundred of signatures/approvals you have to get for one task. At least, it contributes to our joint-savings to buy a 2nd hand car for me....IF everything goes well....

Berlin!

Berlin....the largest city in Germany, the city that was rebuilt after the World War II. Quite frankly, my hubs and I were both quite disappointed. No offense, no doubt Berlin is a fairly nice, huge, urbanised city, but somehow with such a big city like this, cosy is not the word to describe it. Nevertheless, it is a city I always wanted to visit..at least once.

We took the first flight out on Saturday, very early morning and arrived in Berlin at 8am so we had a full day. Of course taking such an early flight out meant that we had a very short night. And the next day, we were out and about in the city center, walking and did our sight-seeing which covered approximately 10km! That was our first day and mind you, both of us had only less than 4 hours of sleep the night before. I am quite impressed that we managed to cover most of the highlights in the city center - Fernsehturm (TV tower), Rotes Radshaus (City hall), Alexanderplatz (that's where we stayed), Bradenburg gate (what a sight to behold), Berliner Dom (the Prostestant cathedral), the remains of the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the museums in the Museum Island, Potsdamer Platz :) :) In between, we had our pitstop to rest our poor tired feet and of course to have nice German desserts that they are good at making. We crashed out nicely that night, very early Zzzzzzz.

The next day we took it easy and decided to visit the Schloss Charlottenburg palace and the must-visit Pergamon museum that was highly recommended by my parents-in-law. The palace was quite a disappointment but perhaps we have seen much more beautiful palaces in other countries such as France. We had to take the public transport to the palace as it is situated outside the city center. We were quite impressed by the German public transportation, it is pretty good. Everywhere, there will be frequent buses, trams, fast tram, trains, etc. Initially, it was quite confusing for us as there were so many type of public transportation available but once you get used to it, it's pretty easy.

Whereas the Pergamon museum took our breath away. The museum is world famous for its archaeological holdings. The Pergamon, located on Museum Island, is really three museums in one – the Collection of Classical Antiquities (also on display in the Old Museum), the Museum of the Ancient Near East, and the Museum of Islamic Art. The Pergamon Museum’s monumental highlights are truly breathtaking to behold. This museum will be my second most favourite museum after the Egyptian Museum in Cairo ;)

Since we had some time left before dinner time, we decided to check out the Reichstag building, the German parliament building. The building is an iconic glass dome constructed on top of the rebuilt Reichstag. It was designed by architect Norman Foster and built to symbolize the reunification of Germany. The distinctive appearance of the dome has made it a prominent landmark in Berlin. Many tourist flocked to this building to catch a glimpse of this German parliament building. We had to queue for 30 mins before we get into the building with tight security of course. When we got into the dome, it was worth it. The view from the dome was magnificent and the dome itself was amazing. The Bundestag dome is the iconic large glass dome at the very top of the building.The dome has a 360-degree view of the surrounding Berlin cityscape. The main hall of the parliament below can also be seen from the cupola, and natural light from above radiates down to the parliament floor. A large sun shield tracks the movement of the sun electronically and blocks direct sunlight which might bedazzle those below.

The last day, we had a full day as our flight back was at night, we decided to hit the shopping area, the famous KaDeWe ("Kaufhaus des Westens") shopping mall, 60,000 sq. metres of flagship store packed with designer labels! More like window shopping there...drooling all over the nice clothing on display :) Believe it or not, Berlin also has a Galleries Lafayette! But unfortunately not as nice and big as the one in Paris of course, and no shoes department :( How disappointing.

We didn't waste our last day shopping alone, we went to visit the famous Berlin Zoo after spending 2 hours browsing around the stores and had a quick, delicious lunch in KaDeWe. Lunch was very good in their chic food court right on the top floor of the stor one of the best zoo around and has the most species of animals in the world which we agreed. Probably being one of the older zoo around, some of the 'habitats' for the animals were sorely lacking (small area of confinement) as compared to the zoos in Holland. Perhaps too many animals cramped into one big area. We hope that with some works going around now, the management are going to enlarge the zoo area further.

Last but not least, the German food.....I was quite disappointed the first 2 days and most likely we had picked some wrong restaurants/cafes cos the food was sorely lacking than what we had expected. We were compensated on the last day when we discovered this nice cafe, a stone throw away from our hotel. It was soooo good and of course with the lunch that we had in KaDeWe, it sure make our day in Berlin ;) ;)

The Long Weekend Starts Today

The long weekend starts today yippeeee!!! My workplace will be closed for the Raya so Monday is a holiday for us! When the clock striked 6pm, I happily packed my things and left the office in a hurry. Who doesn't...it's Friday...weekend!!

I have more to look forward to....I'm heading to Berlin tomorrow with my Hubs for a weekend trip ;) Weather forecast - sunny with temperature ranging 22-24 degrees. That's not too bad for this time of the year... coming autumn. Trees here are losing its leaves, turning to a beautiful shade of yellow and red. Yup, autumn is definitely around the corner. I just hope that the weather forecast in Berlin stays true, eh...