Monday, November 15, 2004

Fireworks

Very regularly, you can see fireworks somewhere in the Manila skyline. Especially when I was in Oakwood, I had a great view over large parts of the city and it seemed that nearly every night there was some display of fireworks going on somewhere in town. Well, last Saturday it was the turn for the Lopez family to show their stuff here in Rockwell. The fireworks were set off from the roof of the mall in front of our balcony so you can absolutely say that we had front row seats! And the fireworks were really, really good. Some of the best I've ever seen in my life. Not that I've seen all that much - my memories of fireworks can be summarized into blurred moments of inhaling too much of the smoke and nearly dying trying to gasp for air and fuses that fizz out before they reach the heart of the fireworks, but have burnt up too far to light again (somehow this always happens to the fireworks that you have the highest expectations of.) Fortunately, these people are a bit better at it than I am. And here's the video to prove it...

Fireworks at Rockwell

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Salsa!

Today Marieke and I went for our first ever salsa lesson! We've been talking about it for the last 7 years or so, ever since we were in Mexico. I am not a great fan of salsa music per se but whenever I see people dancing to it I wish I could join in. And of course it's mega-sexy to dance the salsa as a man as it's extremely sensual and you're always leading the woman... It was quite hard as we just fell in while the others had already done it a few times and it's not easy trying to dance while you're counting and remembering the 6 different moves you just learned! We're not sure if our teacher is gay or bisexual, but one thing is for sure: he's not 100% straight! The first time we saw him dance was in Cafe Havana in Malate on Lucy's farewell evening and I remember Marieke saying "if we only could find someone like that to teach us!" Now I wasn't alltogether happy that this turned out to be exactly the guy teaching here, but since he's not-so-straight I think my ego can handle it. I'm downloading salsa music now but I have no idea what to get, so if you have any recommendations, leave a note in my guestbook!

Friday, November 12, 2004

Ssssnnnnnnnnniiffff...

Ooooff course. Born and raised in Holland where we're happy to have 1 week in summer above 20 degrees Celcius, with wet winters, falls and springs, with average temperature in winter of around the freezing point, and almost never did I come down with a cold. Tough guy eh? Well, think again. Half a year in the tropics, not a day below 25 degrees and guess who's got the flu! Maaaaaann!! God knows how I got it too. Gotta be the airconditioning or people around me who infected me. Of course I've had a couple of pretty bad weeks at work, late nights, lots of things going wrong, I'm sure that didn't help to build up strength, but still. I remember ridiculing the Filipinos earlier for falling down with the flu in this weather - right back at me I guess!!! I'm getting better though, which is good timing right before a long weekend...

The Filipino guy knew the place Marieke meant and drew a map for us. Of course we took a few wrong turns here and there and got lost a couple of times - as we always do while driving in Manila - but in the end we made it (thanks in part to our compass that we now have installed in the car so that we know what direction we're driving in!!! ) The stands are indeed built on and over the railroad tracks, with the opening at the side of a little street where we parked. The first thing that struck us were the beautiful bright red 'kerststerren' ('Christmas Stars'), traditional Christmas flowery plants that you see all over Holland in December. Funniest thing was that these plants, that were sold by some of the poorest people in Manila, were actually imported from Holland itself!!! We haven't bought any yet as the merchant told us he wasn't sure they would make it till Christmas, but we'll go back in December to get a few for sure!

We ended up looking at a whole many plants, both at the street side and behind the stalls where we crossed the railroads to look at the 'storage area' and bought quite a few as well. Prices were cheap and we didn't bother to haggle as we knew these people could use the money. Plants were between 70 and 350 Pesos (roughly between 1 and 5 Euros) except for the banana tree which was more expensive (1200 Pesos or 18 Euros) as apparently they grow very slowly. Our house looks like a jungle now - as every house would once you have a banana tree inside!!! We'll see how long they last; most need to be watered daily which so far (2 days now) we have been doing but I know us. Well, we emailed Luan today to ask her help to find a new cleaning lady so maybe she will become the savior of our green life...

The jungle that once was our living room...	Banana tree!
The balcony	And the bamboo bathroom

Hunt for the red couch

We're living nearly three months in our Rockwell apartment now and it shames me to admit that it's still as if we only moved in yesterday. We still have no furniture to speak of, the PC is still placed on the carton box desk, it's still an unsightly mess. It's not that we're not putting effort in getting stuff though. Every weekend we spend hours and hours hunting for furniture - the last few weekends we have visited furniture workshops, factories and even peoples' homes in order to find a place where we can have a simple dinner table made to order, for good quality and reasonable prices. But it's really very hard. Hard to find a place you trust can make furniture that will make it to Europe without falling apart the moment it arrives in our ultra dry and cold climate. Hard to find a place that doesn't quote European prices but without the quality guarantee you get in Europe. It's all a lot harder than we anticipated.

However, the good news is that we have ordered our couch. It's supposed to be ready in a week or 2 and we're really excited about it. A lady called Connie made us an offer we really liked: about 300 Euros to make the couch, while we had to pay another 300 for the fabrics. How weird is that, paying as much for the fabric as for having the whole thing made!?! I thought the fabric was really expensive but I heard that it's actually quite cheap - we use I think 6 different types and for the most part we pay about 10 Euros per meter, there are also 2 more expensive materials, 30 and 60 Euros per meter each, but we only have 1.5 meters of each of these. Oh yes, because we are ordering through Connie, we are also getting a 15% discount... Anyway, the fabrics are really, really nice and we are SO looking forward to getting the couch!!! I just hope that it will be as comfortable as the original we saw back in Holland. 'Cause that's always the risk of course when placing a custom order like this... you're never sure. But we've seen some work that she has done for Bart and Stefanie which looked really good, so we're optimistic!

Model of our couch - but ours will look even cooler!

... and then the dining area ...

As for the table, we're still not sure. The design was easy: we both want a big straigt table - simple in its form with a thick top and big sturdy legs. The trouble is finding a place that we feel can make the table that we want, that is exportable to Europe and all that for a reasonale pice. We have an offer from furniture makers that seem quite professional but they're expensive too. Besides, they 'guaranteed' that the method they will use to make the table should make it fit for export to Europe, but when we talked to another furniture maker (a family business with father Francis and son Cisco ) he told us that even with applying that method he could not guarantee the table wouldn't crack when bringing it to Europe. According to him, the wood needed to be treated with a 'dimension stabilizer', an expensive treatment that he wasn't sure he could do. Anyway, this company seemed the most honest and we saw a lot of examples of what they made in their showroom, so we're quite confident that they would be able to make what we want. On top, their prices were the lowest, although we're now waiting for a renewed offer based on a solid wood table - before they probably quoted us a veneer price.

By the way, veneer really seems the thing here in the Philippines. Everything they make and even everything they recommend is made of plywood and veneer. Back in Holland, veneer is really the cheapest and weakest option, but here everyone seems to go for it. We're still in a 'solid wood mood' and asking for all quotes in solid wood... but we'll see what the best offers are we get because we know that there's no guarantee once you leave the country and I don't want to pay a lot of money while at the same time feeling like I am taking a big risk on quality. Either cheap and cheerful-we-will-see-how-long-it-lasts or expensive and durable-still-tip-top-when-i-retire. The final offers will come in this week so we'll make a decision fast.

The table is one thing. We know what we want and since by now we're wood experts as well we also know what to ask for. The chairs on the other hand, well, that's a whole different story! The first problem is that our tastes really don't match when it comes to dinner chairs. I like the simple, straight 'Jan des Bouvries' type chairs that emphasize the strong symmetric lines of the table. Marieke on the other hand prefers the chairs to be the opposite of the table, more playful, more rounded and if possible even 6 (slightly) different chairs... Try to find a compromise in that!!! So we have spent literally hours and hours browsing magazines, books, the internet... all to no avail. Until this afternoon, when we spent another 2 hours or so leafing through books in the book store here in Rockwell ('Fully Booked', an excellent book store - the best one I know in the Philippines!) and Marieke came across a beautiful 'Biedermeier' side chair. Very elegant, of course round and playful and not at all something Jan des B. would approve of, but something I could live with nonetheless as I love Art Nouveau and that was exactly the style of this chair! We tried to find it on the internet but strangely enough we couldn't, so we're going back to the store today or tomorrow to take a picture of the chair. Normally we would have bought the book but at 100 Euros I prefer to go in and photograph this one page, risking the ire of the personnel (yeah right, as if they care!)

[Update] We went in and took the picture, quietly tucked away in a corner behind some bookshelves. So here it is:

Our future dining chair - or half of it at least!

Thursday, November 4, 2004

Breaking records

YES!!! I did it!!! After more than 3 months of on and off running, I reached my goal of running the 5 km under 21:23! Next goal is to get under 20:25... Keep an eye on my fitness meter!

Friday, October 8, 2004

Ring of Fire

For the second time in 3 weeks we had an earthquake of more than 6 on the Richter scale! This time a whopping 6.4 with the epicenter less than 90 km south of Manila. Earthquakes are weird. The last one woke us up and we thought our bed went into massage mode by itself. (That's right: our bed has a massage mode that came for free and that at first we though we'd never use but now that we have it we use almost every night... and yes, it simply makes the bed vibrate... ) When you're on the 10th floor like us, there is really nothing you can do except wait and see. The whole building sways from left to right, the walls creak, there are undistinguishable noises here and there... And then it's over. At least that has been the case up to now and I'm assuming mother nature will keep it this way: nice and civilized! I read on CNN that "the Philippines is along the so-called Pacific 'Ring of Fire', where earthquakes and volcanic activity are common.". Nice one. No one bothered to tell me that before I moved here!

Of course, this being the second time, I was prepared. Despite being thrown from wall to wall by the earthquake and while dodgeing object flying around the room I managed to get a hold of my camera and film a good 45 seconds!

6.4 on the Richter scale

Saturday, October 2, 2004

Welcome to our house!

It's about time I put up some pictures of where we live. The only problem is... we keep forgetting to take them in the first place! So I scanned my PC and made some additional snapshots tonight so that you can at least get some idea of where and how we're living at the moment...

This is the entrance:

The lobby	The lobby as well

There's always a couple of guards at the entrance. Some of them hardly open their mouths but there are a few that are really friendly too. They make sure no one goes up to any apartment without explicit approval of the owners, which completely destroys the possibility of surprise visits - if you come unexpected, they will first call up to our apartment to ask if they can let you through. Too bad, 'cause we were really looking forward to surprise visits from Europe... It does give a very safe feeling however: even when taxis come, they note down the license number so if you get robbed/killed, they always know who did it.

Rockwell consists of 5 buildings: Hidalgo, Rizal, Luna and Amorsolo East and West. In the middle there's a nice pool with deck chairs and tables. You can eat and drink rather cheaply which surprised us as the whole place is definitely very posh. There's a cheap but classy restaurant as well but we haven't eaten there yet.

The pool, seen from the lobby	Ravishingly handsome person, seen from the lobby
The pool and restaurant tables	The pool and a foot
Ravishingly handsome person, seen at the pool	Our building, seen from the pool

We're in Amorsolo East, on the 10th floor. This sounds higher than it feels. We're looking over the roof of the Powerplant shopping mall and there are a few more high rises here so really you don't feel that you're that high up at all. It's now 2 months ago that I first moved in and still we have nearly no furniture. Here's what our living room looks like right now:

Our designer desk in the background	Our reclining buddha from Italy (duh)
The view from the entrance	The room seen from the designer desk

As we don't have a desk and couldn't find any cheap table, I decided to get creative and build my own desk with some moving boxes. The top is the bed box with a few metal rods. It's only a matter of time before the whole thing collapses. Let's hope that that time does not come before we get a proper desk...! Here are some views:

View from our bedroom on the pool	View from our bedroom too. Right: Rizal, left: Hidalgo buildings
Dramatic skies in the evening, from our balcony	The same drama, more to the right

That's it for now. We'll take more pictures and then I'll make a separate section where I'll regularly post Manila pictures...

Saturday, September 18, 2004

Ballet blues...

You know, I consider myself pretty much into art, comparatively speaking. I like Art Nouveau stuff, Impressionist paintings, classical music, opera (a lot!), etc. But ballet somehow never really appealed to me. The dancing, the men in tights, the whole idea of looking at that for 2 hours or so... no, doesn't sound like my idea of a good time. But. You have to try everything at least once. Well maybe not everything, but hey, how bad can ballet be? Well... very bad.

We went to the show on Saturday evening (met up with Lili and some of her friends, her husband Chip wisely opted out for the evening.) It was going to be a cross between ballet and the opera Madame Butterfly from Puccini. We'd seen the opera before, in Frankfurt, and it's a pretty good one. The music is ok (with a beautiful aria called 'un bel di vedremo'), the setting stunning: an American navy officer who falls in love in Japan with a Geisha... The right ingredients for stunning stage work!

The show started with an introduction by the theatre owner (I think) saying something about how this was the last night of the performance, praising the performers and wishing us a good time with 'our artists'. So we were all excited and all ready for the big show. The curtains lifted... and the decor was not very fancy but still nice, the dancers all dressed, no men in tights, So far so good. But then we realized there was no live music, just a CD playing in the background. And mostly just music, no singing, which I'm sure Puccini did not envision his opera being played, at least the music wasn't anything special - except for the 3 or 4 parts where there was some (recorded) singing. Soon it also became apparent that the dancers weren't that great: the dancing wasn't synchronized very well, and the performers somehow seemed to fall short. Marieke got completely worked up about the constant non-moving fake smile on Madame Butterfly's face, while I wasn't charmed when one of the men helped another take off his shirt so he could dance for 10 minutes with only his pants on. The story clearly wasn't meant for ballet either. The acting was lame, the drama factor was moved into the red zone, the whole story unconvincing and artificial. Not sure if this was Manila's finest (in which case it was pretty dire) or rather an acting school that put up a performance (in which case it was actually quite good)

Marieke still thinks that I should go and see some real classical ballet like the Swan Lake but I don't know. I'll probably go just to have one final look, but I still don't see the appeal of watching ballet dancing for 2 hours. Or even for 15 minutes. The whole thing... I just find it boring...

Thursday, September 9, 2004

Vroooooooooooommm (this time for real!)

Finally, all the paperwork is done - I still don't have all the final documents but at least I have a stack of papers with which I can supposedly drive. To be honest, I'm not even really sure I can drive, but I stopped caring. According to the car dealer it's fine now so I decided I'm gonna take my chances and drive the bastard!!! After all, it's been withering away in a dark, damp garage for too long now - time to take my baby out for a spin! The dealer told me to drive it 60-80 km/h for the first 100 kilometers. Yeah right. Ever seen Manila traffic at peak hours? This man isn't going anywhere faster than 30 km/h - that is when I'm not stuck in a traffic jam!! Probably the fastest driving I'll be able to do is out of the parking garage!

Anyway, Thursday was the big day... I lost my Manila driver's virginity!! It was everything you'd expect from a first time: it was slow and I was scared shitless. Scared that some bus would ram me from the side (buses actually do do 80 km/h, they have their own lane on the right hand side. Normally, this is supposed to be the'slow lane' but not here. Buses propel through traffic on this lane. And at the point where I have to turn right, they come flying past, on my right hand side, mercilessly, honking just once and short from far away. Makes you crap your pants. Except you don't want to mess up your new car with the smell of shit, which is the only thing that keeps it from actually happening...

Aahh but it's really just a matter of getting used to. I know how these things go from experience: in a few weeks I'll be slaloming through traffic like they all do. I already heard that the police is used to randomly stopping people, on the pretext of some made up violation you never did. Some of my friends already are in a state that they don't even stop for the police anymore. They just ignore them, "didn't see them", and drive on. Apparently there's little the police can do. They can't report you as you haven't done anything wrong and anyway reporting means that if you get a fine, the money goes to the state instead of their pockets. In case you do get stopped, this is apparently also the way to do it: you ask the officer if you really have to go to the office or if you can settle the bill right then and there. A little haggling will take place and you'll be let off for a couple hundred pesos (a couple Euros)... I'm waiting for my first time with a police officer already...

Sunday,September 5, 2004

Vroooooooooooommm

Last Friday I got a call from the Toyota garage that my car had finally arrived!! I called them up and made an appointment to go pick it up Saturday afternoon around 14:00... So I got up early, all excited of course, did some groceries and then prepared to leave for my brand new car. And then I panicked. My temporary Filipino driver's license - I couldn't find it anywhere!! I searched the whole house, turned every box and bag upside down, but the bastard had disappeared... In the end, I called Toyota and they argeed to deliver the car to me. Too bad as I would have preferred to drive the first kilometer myself of course but then again I was happy that I could at least get it. They came by around 16:00 and I was finally united with my very own Toyota Rav4! I'll take some pictures soon and post them - together with some pictures of the house.

Unfortunately the license wasn't the only thing missing... The car also came without a 'conduction permit' without which it was illegal to drive it. Makes you wonder why they drove it from the garage to my house huh? Well, that's the Philippines for you - rules are relative... I'm supposed to get the permit on Monday but in the mean time my biggest worry is my license, without that I'll anyway still be bound to taxis...

Saturday, September 4, 2004

Together again...

Finally!!! After being separated for months, Marieke is back in Manila and we're living together again! OK, she's not here permanently yet, but at least she'll stay a good while - she'll finish writing her thesis here and only when that's done she's going to go back to Holland. And then it'll be for the last time too! It'll be great to finally be together again, to do, see and experience things together. I'm happy she's joining me now and not later. Our apartment is still empty and I haven't been around the Philippines much yet. Being together we can now do all those things with the 2 of us and thus really build up a life here together as opposed to me building it up first and then she 'joining my life'. Especially being able to decorate the apartment together is important for me. That way it will really become OUR home... athough I wonder how easy it's going to be finding stuff here if we couldn't even find what we liked in Amsterdam!!!

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Couch potato in the make, part 2

Wow. I just came home, and... Wow! It was Angie's first working day today and I asked her to clean all the cabinets so I can start packing them with stuff (utensils & food in the kitchen, clothes in the bedrooms.) And I just came home and to my utter and most delightful surprise I saw that she not only cleaned all cabinets, she also put all the stuff I have in them!! And on top, she's clearly cleaned the whole house, vacuumed, dusted, the works!!! This is the best!!! Aaahhh... I think I can easily get used to this kind of life. In fact, I am sure. Being an expat is just getting better and better...!

Monday, August 30, 2004

Couch potato in the make

Today I got my cable TV and I 'interviewed' Angie who will help me to keep my place from becoming a mess... That means that I now have nearly everything I need to become a proper couch potato. The only thing still missing is the couch! Marieke is coming next weekend and then we'll start working on that angle too. I think we're going to have our furniture made, but we're not sure yet. I'm supposed to do the preparational work but so far I've not been very successful. Bah, que sera sera.

I hope my internet connection comes soon. That's the only thing I'm still really missing here in Rockwell.

Friday, August 27, 2004

The Da Vinci Code

This week I finished The Da Vinci Code written by Dan Brown. I heard that it's been the number 1 best seller on the New York Time's best seller list... And well deserved too! It's a great suspense novel with Christianity and art as the main subject. Now as most of you will know, I don't believe in God, Buddha, Allah, Zeus or any other divine being. So when I first heard that this played a main part in the book, I was kind of apprehensive. How wrong I was! True, the whole story revolves around Christianity, but it treats it from a historical perspective and it highlights some extremely interesting facts about Jesus during his mortal life on earth. These are facts that show Jesus' human side and that have been hidden by the church for so long that now they are forgotten or simply ignored because the legend as described in the Bible is so strong that everyone takes it for granted.

This book is a real eye opener, written like a movie with 'cliff hangers' at the end of each (small) chapter, that will keep you reading without wanting to stop. No literary masterpiece but a top suspense novel. Warmly recommended!!!

Sunday, August 22, 2004

Moved!!!

FINALLY!!! Just when you think it'll never happen!!! All papers have been signed, I've got the keys, and I am in! My own home! My own place! My own stuff! And of course... my own bed!!! Now the only thing I still need to move in is Marieke...

I'm really relieved that the whole house hunting nightmare is finally out of the way. It'll still take some time before I've unpacked and I also still need to buy quite some furniture, but I'll wait for Marieke to come (should be early September) to finalize things. For now I'm just happy that I can really say I'm going home.

The place I've moved into is called Rockwell Residences in Makati. It's got everything I need: a gym, a great pool, an adjacent mall, all kinds of nice (high end) restaurants... I'm going to enjoy it here! I'll need a car now to go to work, so I'll have to wait for my Rav 4 to be delivered. Until then I'll be forced to take a taxi every day, which can mean a real hassle, especially when it rains. But what the hell - I HAVE A HOME!

Saturday, August 21, 2004 Team building event on Cebu

My team at work consists of 6 people: me, Sandeep - an Indian based in Singapore, Tadashi - a Japanese guy based in Kobe, Edgar, Richie and Zandro - 3 Filipino guys sitting here with me in Manila. A pretty diverse group (although no ladies, yet!) and we hadn't been together yet. Some people had never even seen each other. High time therefore for some good ol' team building! We had some wild plan about locations initially, but business reality put us right back to where we apparently belong: the Filipino archipelago. Palawan is rumored to have the best beach resorts in the Philippines but Sandeep made it clear that he would rather swim than come near any propeller plane so that was out of the question. So on Thursday morning we got in a plane bound for Cebu.

We went to a place called Plantation Bay, a man made resort on the Cebuana sea side. When we arrived at the lobby I got a bit apprehensive. We had been warned by some people that the smell could be really bad. After all, the place is man made and the water needs to be refreshed regularly. Still, some time after the last maintenance period, the water apparently starts to reek and when we arrived it felt more like Plantation Sewer. Fortunately the smell passed away as we passed through the lobby and were driven to our home for the next 3 days: the Penthouse!! Right in the middle of the complex, with a near 360 degrees view of all the pools around us - eeexcellent location!

The days were mostly filled with team building stuff and presentations. The evenings we went to Cebu city to enjoy the Cebuana nightlife. The first night (Thursday) was kind of slow, but Friday was quite a different story. We started back in the resort at the pool bar with some beer and with some MEAN sake that Tadashi had brought along from Japan. As the night progressed some of us lost our minds and what followed is now a blurry mix of images of groovy dancing and screaming foreigners on an otherwise relatively quiet terrace.

I've posted the pictures in the photo section.

Sake in front of the Penthouse

Monday, August 16, 2004

Anilao

Last weekend I went to Anilao, a diving resort town about 3 hours drive from Manila. I went because it was Clare's farewell weekend and I didn't have anything to do that was better than lazing in the sun reading a book! Diving was no option because I had to be on call for work on Saturday and Sunday I'd inevitably be too hung over to start my first ever diving experience. But that was cool - I recently bought the Da Vinci Code after everyone has been going on and on about this book so I had something to do. (By the way, I haven't read that much yet, but it is a damn good book!)

Clare brought her leftover wine collection along which for a leftover collection was very impressive: it lasted 11 people the whole night!! Granted, 8 of them were girls and I spilled a full glass while enthusiastically telling some random story, but still. The place was great, the Saturday sunset one to remember, and I relaxed in a way I haven't relaxed in a long time. (Fortunately Anne was there to keep me company as she was the only one who also didn't feel like diving... )

Here are the few pictures I shot. Hilda and Bettina also made some pictures on Saturday evening. I'll try to lay my hands on those as well and add them to the post here. One thing I forgot to say: Clare, Hilda and I arrived a night before the rest and when we got there it was already a pitch black night. Imagine waking up the next morning, opening your eyes to this...

Our room	Our balcony, as seen from my bed
The view from our balcony	Still from the same balcony

Sunday, August 15, 2004

5 Kilometers

I've decided to train for the 5 kilometers. I'm not entirely sure why, I guess a large part has to do with the fact that I haven't been able to take up any serious sport yet. No football, no squash, nothing that breaks a proper sweat. Another reason is that the 5k is a good distance: it takes only about half an hour which is just short enough to ensure that I never really have an excuse not to go.

I've also decided to keep track of my times on my web site, for motivation (see here or the link on the top of this page.) I don't really have a goal. I checked the Dutch record as well as the world record to see if I could use them as inspiration, but when I saw them they put me right back in my amateuristic place like a cold shower on a Polish winter day:

5,000m world record: 12:37.35 - Kenenisa Bekele - May 31, 2004
5,000m Dutch record: 13:13.06 - Kamiel Maase - Sept 6, 2002
5,000m Dan's record: 24:13.00 - Daniel de Rooij - Aug 15, 2004

I am contemplating using the divine proportion (1.618) to get to my target time (Yes I'm reading The Da Vinci Code!) That means we're talking 21:23 or even 20:25 and I have to admit that that feels very stretching if not impossible. But hey, goals are there to achieve so I'm going for it. 21:23 will be the first step. The one thing I fear though is that the moment I reach 21:23 some idiot finds it necessary to break the Dutch record and I can start all over again. Well, more or less...

Thursday, August 12, 2004

A driver's license for 150 days...

Three hours in a sweltering hot administration office. That's what it took to get me a (temporary) driver's license! I had to fill out a few forms, hand over a couple of documents, and that was pretty much it. For the rest it was just waiting and waiting and waiting. They gave me medical test as well, which consisted of reading letters off a chart and a drug test. Naturally I was nervous as hell. Ever since December 2003 my eye sight suddenly went from eagle vision to bat vision (but then without the cool feature to see at night.) I'm not sure why this happened so suddenly but I suspect it has something to do with me spending 15 hours a day in the office behind my PC doing interface coding. Nonetheless I passed the test though, and I noticed that my left eye seems to be slightly better than my right - my right didn't quite see the difference between a C and a Q... And then for some inexplicable reason I even passed the drug test! Oh yeah, my blood pressure was 130/90 which considering the heat, the long waiting and the nervousness for the tests wasn't that bad. Still I think my blood pressure is too high and I want to get it down. That's why I've recently taken up running - I'll soon post a 5km race chart up this site to track my progress... So finally, after 3 looong hours, they gave me a crap little piece of paper, which is my temporary driver's license. And now I have to wait 5 months before I can get my real one!

My 150-day Filipino driver's license!

Anyway, I'm happy I've got it. Now all I need is a car...

Monday, August 9, 2004

HOW OLD DID YOU SAY???

Thirty-one ladies and gentlemen. Thirty-one! That's how old I am as of yesterday. *Sigh* It doesn't get any better with the years, I tell ya! My birthday-day was one of mixed emotions. It started out great, Marieke had arranged a real birthday cake with "Gefeliciteerd Daniel" in big blue letters and 31 lit candles on top! She also got me a big balloon... well, I guess monster is the closest I can get:

The cake, semi-slaughtered	The balloon monster...
Blowing out 31 candles...	...ain't easy when you're as old as me!!

But alas, as good as it started, it went downhill from there. We originally planned to play tennis, get a massage and to go out to the old town called Intramuros (see also my entry dated April 15, 2004) but of course once we plan a proper day, it has to POUR DOWN all day! We decided not to get a massage either because it would mean we'd be a good 1,5 hours apart which is not what you want on the last day. So instead we just stayed in the apartment and only went out for a bit of shopping... At 17:00 we went to the airport. Marieke's flight was at 19:40 so we were kinda early but we'd figured she'd just check in and then we'd spend the rest of the time on the airport. Well we figured wrong. For some inexplicably stupid reason, no one is allowed inside any door without a passport and a ticket!!! Even though you're still far away from any customs, you are still not allowed to even enter the building. And of course there is absolutely nothing outside except barriers to keep everyone in line. Not a bench in sight. Not a coffee shop. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Niets. One thing I actually will do next time is bring my passport and claim I have an e-ticket - or better yet, print one out. They'll let you though for sure! But this time I wasn't so lucky to have thought of that earlier so Marieke went in alone to check in. She came out afterwards but since there was nothing at all to do, we just said our goodbyes right outside and I took a taxi back home.

For some reason, this goodbye was the most emotional one so far. This might sound a bit strange since we are pretty much used to saying goodbye and living apart. On top, this time we know we will see each other again in a few weeks - we already agreed that no matter when Marieke graduates, we won't be apart again for this long (3 months.) On the other hand, when we said our goodbyes in March when I first went out here, we knew we would be apart for much longer than this time - still the goodbye then was easier. Perhaps it is because now we know what it's like to not only be apart, but to have a 6 hours time difference as well and that's what makes it particularly difficult. Up to March we only knew what it was like to be in different European cities, which was actually not that difficult at all. It's the added time difference in combination with being apart for periods of months rather than weeks at a time which is killing. Anyway, this time we won't wait 3 months, so I hope we won't have to go through this experience again.

Friday, August 6,2004

A house, a house, my kingdom for a house!

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!! Finally!!! We got a house - an apartment in Rockwell!!! Finally, finally finally - I spent 3 months hunting house haphazardly and the last 2 weeks Marieke came to Manila partly to help me finalize it. And yes, after numerous apartments, disappointments with landlords changing their demands, brokers showing unfit apartments we finally have a place. It fits most of our requirements (nice are, nice layout, although the view is not great and it's not overwhelmingly big) and if everything goes as planned, I can move in as of August 16. That's next week!!! Now I'll also have to buy a car quickly to go to work. I'm planning on getting the Toyota Rav4 - it's a small SUV that looks very cool and I'm really excited about it.

The living room, seen from the entrance	The living room, seen from the balcony
The view from the living room & balcony

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Dutch and Scots at an American-Moroccan-German-French wedding in Paris!

If the title wasn't weird enough for you, don't worry: the story is even weirder... I've known my American friend Shawn for quite a while, we met in Frankfurt somewhere late 2001/early 2002 and we've been hanging out a lot together. We've been on many trips together (snowboarding, Barcelona, Dublin, Scotland, Amsterdam, ...) and we've been on many, many, many nights out. Many. And pretty wild sometimes. Also, Shawn had been dating Hasnaa for a while, a Moroccan girl that worked with us at P&G. But they broke up late last year - she was living in Paris while he was in Frankfurt which wasn't ideal and on top she's a muslim while he isn't (I should say wasn't) so it didn't seem meant to be. As far as I knew, Shawn was single. So you can imagine my surprise when late May this year we had a chat over MSN that went something like this:

Turns out that when he was about to move back to California Hasnaa realized she didn't want to live without him. They talked about it, made sure it was OK with the parents (Shawn converted) and they got married for the Imam (I think) right away. The civil wedding + party was planned 2 months later, on this July 24.I made sure I was in Europe - got a bit lucky with business trips, especially one in Madrid right the week before the 24th, and I went down to Paris on Friday together with Marieke.

We met up at the airport with Angus and Kirsty - Angus is another good friend of mine I met in Frankfurt (believe me, that city is a good friend maker if you're not a German! ) We both were in different hotels as Lufthansa's Miles & More program only seems to reserve 1 room per hotel but after we freshened up we met down town. We had dinner in an excellent little African place with excellent African service, great African food and near-African prices (well... sort of); unfortunately I forgot the name of the place. And of the famous latin bar right next to it.

The next day was the day of the wedding. We met up at our hotel, Angus & Kirsty kindly bought us all some excellent French croissants for breakfast, and from there we took a taxi to the wedding. After the bastard lowlife French taxi driver slapped away my paper with the address on it (apparently I was blocking the GPS screen or whatever) we got to the town hall. We met some of Hasnaa's friends there, Dutch Moroccans!! , and after Hasnaa showed we went inside for the ceremony. The whole thing was in French & English and after the vows & rings etc. we went off to do a boat cruise over the Seine with lunch. We weren't supposed to give any gifts, but Marieke and I couldn't help ourselves and got them a big Dutch pick nick basket with all kinds of Dutch products in it: plenty of Delfts Blauw, cheese, stroopwafels, kaasschaaf, the works.

After the cruise, which was very neat, especially seeing the beach the Parisians have created on the banks of the Seine (too bad though that the French 'men' think it's cool to sunbathe in g-strings ) we went back to the hotel to change. The rest of the evening we spent in beautiful Paris. We had dinner with the whole group, then went for drinks and by the end of the evening the 4 of us, Angus, Kirsty, Marieke and I were the only ones standing (barely though!) We went to lengths to find places still open in the little hours of the day and ended up in some weird bar with a tree growing in the midst of it. At least I think so. Can't say I really trust my memory when I'm in such a state... I also quite cunningly interrupted Angus' yawn half way, something which brought me and the other great joy. And when he told me days later that was still suffering from that unfinished yawn, it brought me even greater joy. Here's what he wrote...

Pictures, of course, can be found in the photo section.

Marieke, Hasnaa, Shawn & me

Saturday, July 17, 2004

Maltese adventures

We discussed a long time about where to go on holiday. We thought about Italy, Morocco, Ireland... but none of the places really felt right: Italy was too close to home as I just moved from there, Morocco a bit too much on the senses at this moment in time and Marieke was afraid that it would be too rainy in Ireland. Now, I've been to Ireland last year August with Shawn, and the weather was gorgeous. But she wouldn't have any of it. Ahhh, stubborn woman! (Of course when it later turned out that indeed it did rain the whole time in Ireland I couldn't deny feeling relieved myself... )

And then Marieke came with the idea of Malta. It sounded dreadful to me: an island smaller even than Holland - and anyway, Malta??? I only knew it exists because they have a football team. I figured it'd be somewhere around Italy, but where? Do they speak Italian? Do they have the Euro? All in all, I was against. Until Marieke showed me the web site of the Maltese board of tourism (or so). I saw pictures of ancient towns, monumental buildings, near-African sceneries, beautiful beaches... And I was sold!

We went to the same hotel as Marieke's parents had gone to 2 years ago, in Marsaskala - a quiet fisherman's village a few kilometers south of Valetta. The town is perfect: at night the locals gather on the long boulevard where they stroll around or sit down with the neighbors to chat. Lots of nice little restaurants along this stretch, some doing great fresh fish, others serving intolerably bad pizza... At first we got a room with a decent view right over the pool with the sea to our left, but there were only 2 single beds!! Listen, after not having seen each other for over 3 months there was no way in hell we were going to enjoy ANY holiday time with 2 single beds. It took us a lot of negotiation and a bit of luck with a friendly girl behind the counter to finally get a decent room with a double bed and a similarly great view - on the 5th floor. Granted, we had to wait 2 nights out of 7 for it, but hey, who's complaining, right?

The hotel was decent enough. Every afternoon at around 14:00 the animation girls came out to do 'Splash Daaaaance' with the guests which was hilarious to watch. We think it was meant for the kids but it seemed that the adults loved it even better. Everyday the same horribly cheesy music, the same moves, the same people. We talked to one of the animation girls later on. She was half Australian and had been doing this work, at this very same hotel, for 9 consecutive years now!!! Without a holiday break of her own!!!

At night there was some sort of half-hearted animation/disco/senior's dance up on the roof of the restaurant. It really came to life in the weekend when the line dancers came in (all locals we think) and did their thing. Line dancing is hard to explain until you experience it for yourself. It's clearly invented by and for people who can not dance. It's a sort of synchronous walking with some studied steps. People who do it make it a point not to have fun. I think course 1 in line dancing is called: "how to line dance without falling down laughing hysterically." The second course must be something like: "how to line dance without so much as a hint of enjoyment." It's unbelievable... very weird to watch too - it freaked me out.

Malta itself was OK. There wasn't much to do, which was partly why we chose to go there, but in the end there may have been just a bit too little to do. We are people that need to go places, see & do things. And there wasn't much of that in Malta.

On one of the first days we decided to walk over to Marsasloxx (not sure anymore about the spelling), which was supposed to be the most picturesque fisherman's village, complete with the typically shaped & colored fishing boats for which Malta is famed. It was about an hour's walk or so on a winding road,a bit more perhaps. Marieke thought it would be an excellent idea to do this walk on her new flip-flops. My protests to the contrary were waved away as being difficult. Sure. Guess who was walking on flip-flops 3 sizes too small 45 minutes later!!! Once in Marsasloxx, there wasn't all that much to see though. Then for the way back we thought we'd be smart and cut across the hills instead of following the winding road back. Great idea! Especially the idea to just continue straight down through people's farm land and dried up corn fields etc. when the road ended. To be fair though, there was no one around (this was at the hottest hour of the day - a time where locals know better than to be out in the open sun) and we could maneuver well along the side of the fields, with only a little climbing and scrambling up and down the slopes and separation walls. The only thing that suddenly started to worry me a bit was the possibility of encountering watch dogs... Fortunately though all remained calm and we reached the end of the last field, where the houses started. There we climbed over the last wall... walked through what looked like someone's garden... and then... all of a sudden... A TERRIBLE BARKING AND TWO DOGS THE SIZE OF SMALL HORSES CAME CHARGING RIGHT AT US!!! Luckily, they were chained up. Still, adrenaline pumped through our bodies and I pulled Marieke along as she wanted to go back to the fields while I wanted to get down to the road. We passed through another garden where the owners had already come out of their normal afternoon coma to see what the noise was all about, and with a cool 'hello' we quickly walked past them, onto the road, onto safety... I love dogs, but they shouldn't be allowed to grow any bigger than a small weekend bag. With the exception of Golden Retrievers of course...

We also rented a car for a couple of days (driving on the wrong side of the road in a country with Italian traffic rules and a fetish for roundabouts!) so we drove all over the place. Don't get me wrong: there were some very beautiful things to see, like Mdina, an old town hardly touched since the 1600s or so, the blue grotto that Homer wrote about in the Odyssey, beautiful white beaches, and of course the capital Valetta which is a Unesco World Heritage site. Unfortunately we got the wrong first impression of this town. We arrived by bus and at the bus stop, which is at the gates of the city, walked straight down the hill, looking for the beautiful little streets and big cathedrals. Well, after 1.5 hours of big streets and unimpressive little churches, I finally realized, looking for the 23rd time at the map top figure out where we were, that we had been walking in the wrong direction all along!!! And that on Sunday, with all shops and bars closed, at the hottest hour of a typical Maltese summer day, at a sweltering 35 degrees Celsius!

I will post some pictures as soon as I have them. At the moment, the CD with all the pictures is in Holland, at mom and dad's place, but if everything goes as planned, I'll have them on Saturday when Marieke arrives. (Note: This is Saturday Sept 4!)

Oh yeah, one final funny thing. On the last day we wanted to go to a beach. It was already late so we didn't want to go too far from our place, Marsaskala. So we decided to go 'Pretty Bay' which was pretty near (distance is relative in Malta: the concept of road signs never made it to the island so getting anywhere is really a matter of luck - not much more.) Well, what can I say. Pretty it certainly wasn't. Maybe 'Could-Have-Been-Pretty Bay' would have been a more apt name. It was a smallish bay with a nice set of rocks stretching in a big semi circle into the water, making it nice and secluded. The town edged on the beach with nice little old buildings. The sand was a golden yellow and the water a deep shade of blue and shallow. A sports field and a cafe finished the laudable setup. But then. Looking out at sea there was a HUGE shipyard/dock blocking the view of the open see completely. Enormous ships were unloading big metal containers with cargo (Chinese or African refugees? I couldn't help that picture from entering my mind.) Fortunately the docks didn't produce any (noticeable) rubbish in the water, but still. There are 4 sandy beaches in the whole of Malta. Tourism is the island's number 1 source of income. You would expect that they would build this shipyard somewhere else, on an unattractive rocky piece of shore! Still, we stayed and had our fun playing beach ball against this weird backdrop...

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