Magda-drive ako hanggang...

…Paris! Sabi yan ni Ate Budz oder? :)

I never would have thought that I’d finally pass my driving exam on my second take, aber zum Glück habe ich es ja geschafft! Woohoo! Real luck! I’ve only done 6 hours of driving lessons before my first exam last April and 4 hours before my second exam last June. I haven’t practised driving since September last year and I’ve only been driving since January of last year, so I wasn’t positive about it. Luckily, the police examiner was so nice to us two girls who took the exam. (You bet, yes, it was our charm!) No seriously, they were all nice — my teacher, the examiner, and the other girl whom I did the driving exam with. They sort of worked together to let me pass the exam. To my dearest future riders, don’t freak out, though. I am not that bad in driving. It’s just the loads of street signs in Vienna that I unconsciously ignore sometimes (well yeah, that’s quite dangerous, eh?), which is the most important part of the driving exam. I failed my first one because I entered a one-way street from the opposite side. I mean, I know the signs, but for some reason I just don’t notice them sometimes. Also because the examiner at that time asked me to turn right in an apparently one-way street going to my left. Busted.

My Q&As were about the car tires.

Q: How would I know if it is a summer or a winter tire?

A: A winter tire would have the letters M/S on the tire suface.

Q: How would I know if I need to change the tire?

A: If it has deep cuts or if the tire depth is less than 1.6mm and 4.0mm in summer and in winter, respectively. Measure the tire depth with the tire depth gauge or check the tire depth indicator.

Q: What risk should I be careful of when there is road flooding? What should I do in this situation?

A: Aquaplaning. Hold on tightly to the stirring wheel. DO NOT BREAK!

Some mistakes during the actual 30-minute driving exam:

- watch out when driving in narrow streets with bicycle lanes

- failure to do oscillating glances in one of the intersections with a priority sign

- use of clutch

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The next day, we went to Therme Wien for R&R and to test my driving skills. Here’s Mom riding shotgun, with Wynn, Kuya Carlo, and baby CW in the backseat of Dad’s car. (Photo courtesy of Wynn)

Namatayan ako ng makina mga tatlong beses (yikes, fail) at naligaw konti dahil nag-inarte si TomTom Nav pero still…we survived!

Fish and chips and by the sea

June 15, 2011

Because we’ve got nothing better to do, we went on a 9-hour long road trip along the British East Coast (North Sea, Yorkshire and the Humber), stopping by four small towns — Whitby, Scarborough, Filey, and Bridlington — to eat, take pictures, and just get a breath of fresh (sea)air.

First stop: Whitby. You can’t say you’ve been to the UK if you’ve never tried Fish and Chips! Typically, a Briton would argue that “chips” is not “French fries”. It IS chips. Period. There’s even racism in food! Well, “chips” are technically thicker strips of French fries. They also have straw fries, the less popular one, which are thinner strips of French fries. Although this wasn’t my first Fish and Chips, I figured it was still worth taking a picture. This is me impatiently waiting for my cod and chips with mushy peas at Quayside, the top Fish and Chips shop in Yorkshire in 2008. And when our plates arrived, whoah were they massive! But gluttons that we are, we managed to finish them all. No sweat.

The main attraction in Whitby is the Whitby Abbey in ruins. An abbey, by definition, is a Catholic monastery led by an Abbot or an Abbess. Whitby, including this abbey, is said to have inspired Bram Stoker in writing Dracula.

More pictures at the port of Whitby, showing one of the two lighthouses of Whitby’s twin piers.

An exhausting walk to the top of the lighthouse, scaring ourselves to death.

And who rule the (seashore) world?? Seagulls! They’re everywhere — from Whitby to second stop: Scarborough.

At Scarborough and third stop: Filey.

Fourth and final stop: at a closed fair in Bridlington.

Lucky for us, it was not a bad day (like it always is in England). It was alright, nice and sunny, but not too warm. If you fancy the seaside, these places would be awesome to go to, especially during a proper summer. Not as lovely as the beaches back home, though.

Donauinselfest 2011

Literally the Danube Island Festival, it is Vienna’s annual summer (music) festival. I’ve never been to this event before so I decided to just take a peek last Saturday. It wasn’t that heaving (at least not as I expected it to be) probably because it was still too early and the weather wasn’t that good.

There were a lot of activities for families and for kids like wall climbing and beach volleyball, among other things. Definitely loads of food stalls AND beer stalls couldn’t be missed. Some of the popular foods in Austrian fairs and festivals are Wurst (here, Grillwurst or sausage BBQ) and Langos, a deep fried flat bread made of a dough with flour, yeast, salt, and water (more like a massive flat doughnut).

Feeling pathetic being by myself, I treated myself to a pint of Ottakringer and spent the rest of the time watching a game at ÖBB’s (Austria’s national train company) booth. I would have joined the game because the price is a summer train ticket throughout Austria all summer long!! But before you can actually play the game, you have to play the air guitar first for a good 30 seconds or so. For me to do that, I’d need to take 3 pints, I guess. :) So anyway, the game’s quite straightforward. You just need to NOT answer any question with a “yes” or a “no” within 1 minute of the host’s questioning. Maybe it’s harder than it sounds because not many people won the game.

I enjoyed it, but it could have been better if I weren’t on my own. LOL, lesson learned re festivals.

Travel Light

This is the third time I’m flying home since I came to Britain. If not for my cheapskate-ness, I would have travelled more comfortably every time. Hell I always had to take the coach (7-hour long drive!) to London Gatwick airport. Considering that it only takes me, what, 2 hours from London to Vienna. I just never get to find flights at a reasonable price from Leeds-Bradford airport to Vienna. And whenever I do, it’d be a 14-hour long flight with 2 stopovers. Sick!

Watching “Up in the Air” a few days ago did me good. George Clooney’s character in the movie referred to Asians as light and efficient packers (though this might not be true for most Pinoys). Ergo, I’m out to prove him damn right. It wasn’t easy. I woke up 5-ish this morning to pack up all the things that I thought I could fit into my backpack. Make no mistake, they didn’t fit alright. It was the “survival of the fittest” as I start to take the only pair of jeans I wanted to bring, my shoulder pouch, my flip-flops, and my humongous wallet out of the bag. Ok so who survived? Basically my laptop, chargers, lunch box (with grapes!!), lecture notes, and a few items of clothing did survive. Then off I went to the coach station.

Today’s itinerary:

7:10 – 12:25 (Bradford to London Victoria, coach)

13:00 – 14:25 (London Victoria to London Gatwick, coach)

16:55 (London Gatwick to Vienna, plane)

I’m always right on schedule, but there were 2 things I failed to anticipate this time: the heavy downpour that started an hour before we even reach Victoria and the traffic jam (it’s either due to the rain or it’s just normal London city traffic). We were 30 minutes off schedule and I almost missed my coach to the airport. I got on the coach barely 2 minutes before 13:00. Not bad. The best thing was that I didn’t need to check-in any luggage and I’ve already printed out my boarding pass in advance. And the coolest thing in airports now is that you just need to scan the barcode of the boarding pass to get in to the departure area. No more queue hassles.

My ideal “travel light” would be me travelling with just my phone and Visa card. :p

Taste of Cambridge

June 1-2, 2011

Definitely a long day’s walk. I wonder why we didn’t bother to rent bikes in this city of bikes.

Cambridge, being a student city, has that youthful and peaceful atmosphere. But it took me overnight to appreciate Cambridge. It was a warm, sunny Thursday, enough reason for the city centre to be quite packed. First attraction of the day was a group of African street performers — a taste of Africa in England.

Here’s Manami buying the CD. :) Their live performance made us buy their album for 10 quid (the cheapskate that I am, I normally wouldn’t spend my 10 quid for a thing like that). They’re street performers, but apparently they have an album! They just looked sooooo genuinely happy with all the singing, dancing, and instrument playing. Even if I didn’t understand what their songs were all about, watching them made me wanna do something meaningful in my life, like make a difference, contribute to world peace or just be a better person.

Ruta then showed us the pub where, according to some legend, Watson and Crick discovered (or announced their discovery of) the form of the DNA. This is the The Eagle pub. Ah, the British drinking disease — definitely contagious!

As pseudo-students of Peace Studies doing the peace sign at the Fort St. George pub near Midsummer Common park, having drinks with Ruta’s friends.

The streets in the city centre are typical narrow, pedestrians/cyclists-only zone European streets. They look like the streets in York. Cambridge is a small city, but it has quite a number of large green areas/parks. From our hostel to the pub, we passed by 4 relatively massive parks. And under the sole dried out tree at a park called Jesus Green we had our picnic lunch. Cambridge is also basically all about churches and colleges of the University of Cambridge. The upper right photo is the Great Court of Trinity College, considered the most aristocratic of all the Cambridge colleges. The lower right photo shows the back view of St. John’s College, where some of the Harry Potter scenes were filmed. I don’t really watch HP, but oh well. The building’s all engulfed in greens. The colleges were closed for visitors on this day because of exams.

To call it a day (and the whole trip to Cambridge as well) barely 2 hours before my train trip back to Braddie, we went punting on the River Cam (Thus, the name CAMbridge). Here you can see our gorgeous punter, Sam. :p This reminded me of the gondola rides in Venice. It was just a 45-hour ride to see some of the colleges. We saw some random students having drinks and fun after exams. :) I can imagine how AWESOME and uber COOL it is to be studying at Cambridge Uni! How I wish I were a smart ass and/or filthy rich!

Here’s Manami on the punt with King’s College on the background, Noris and Ruta (the happy couple) on the punt, me with the always-smiling Manami by the River Cam, me with goofing-around Ruta by the River Cam, and Ruta with King’s College on the background.

The most convenient thing ever on this trip was using my phone’s crappy camera. I didn’t bother bringing my humongous dslr. It’s all about the fun, anyway.

After this trip, I would absolutely have to work my ass off both at uni and at work! But Manami chose to spend her last days in England with me and Ruta, so it’s all worth it. “So cuuuute” (Manami Goto, 2011). I will definitely miss my travel buddy, Manami!

OK ka KIKAY

Easter Monday with la famille. Si Kikay ay mukhang alien dito dahil sa paborito nyang shades. (Taken with Instagram at Kurpark Oberlaa - Rosenberg)

Autumn 2009 - Vienna, AT

Some shots around Vienna, Austria.

Christmas is coming, come play Poker, be an ice skater

My first time to go to the Sunday service at VCF since remember-when. And last night was gimik night after church. McDo@Mariahilfstr. + Köö@Stephansplatz. First Poker game, first winter snow this year (I think the day before yesterday was this year’s first winter snow in Vienna, but the homebody that I am didn’t notice that at all!), and first pic with a real, living Christmas tree.

A White Christmas wouldn't be complete without the ice skating challenge. I may look like I'm enjoying in these pictures, but I really was not. I dreaded it (I still dread it) because I fell several times! But it was worth trying, anyway.

Bratislava 2009

One Thursday afternoon in a simple and peaceful city in Slovakia.

Viva Venezia!

We were in Venice for a day last Saturday with my Mom and her friend. For me, the highlight of our trip was riding a gondola. This was definitely what I looked forward to before we made the

trip.

Aside from the gondolas, Venice offers a cinematic view that will absolutely make every tourist drop his jaw in awe. In the picture are some rowers on the Grand Canal.

The main means of transport in the main island are the water buses or what they call vaporetti in Italian. But we mostly walked around the city when we visited. One would think that a day in Venice might be too short to fully appreciate its grandeur. I couldn't agree more. I'm definitely coming back to sweet sweet Venice.

Snorkel snorkel

Brine Valley Resort
Mabini, Batangas
Mabini Tourism

August 25, 2007
MS 102

Na-kornihan ako kasi sa Batangas lang ang field trip…I can just go there any time -- this was before the trip. Pero naisip ko…hindi rin. Kaya happy na rin ako – this was after the snorkeling experience! Yahoo!

The vastness of the ocean seen from the surface was spectacularly overwhelming. As I plunged into the open ocean with my life vest on, there was much more vastness – incomparable. At first, I had to get used to the snorkel, which was really difficult for me. I had to learn it on my own because that’s what the others did. When I asked my classmate, who has already experienced snorkeling, why am I having a difficulty in breathing, she merely said that I was just panicking. I wanted to ask how exactly can I do it right, but it really seemed that I had to find it out on my own. And so I explored on my own, convincing myself to calm down and relax. Don’t panic. Until I finally did it and I was just so amazed by the fact that I did it.

The next thing I knew, I was swimming without my life vest. Whew. But I couldn’t risk going too far from the shore.

The marvel of that fact that I was actually seeing different kinds of fishes (you know the ones you see in aquariums) and I was there swimming with them was enough to take my breath away, sometimes even literally. But as I swam and moved farther from the shore (this I assumed when I could see a more vast area), it actually scared me to go on so I always ended up going back and not being able to explore more. I don’t have the guts. I wasn’t able to do manta towing as well, a water activity where you get to be dragged by a boat while viewing the deep with your snorkel on.