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Travel blog – migration

During the migration of my travel blog from MSN Live Spaces to WordPress, the picture albums accompanying this blog have been left behind at my MSN profile page .

I am currently updating and completely reworking my travel blog. The results will be shown here when finished

August 2007: Scandinavia

In August of last year I went a few weeks to Denmark & Sweden with some friends that I haven’t seen in a long time. What first started as kind of a joke idea soon gained a lot of momentum and before we knew it, we were meeting Danes and Swedes that were shared acquantainces to us in beautiful Scandinavia :-).

 

What ensued was a very exciting, hilarious and fun trip through Kopenhagen, Goteborg, Stockholm & Malmo. Getting to know all those wonderful people we haven’t seen for so long, whilst partaking in the local traditions of alcohol consumption (wow, those Scandinavians drink a lot of beer!), sightseeing and admiring other local beauties :-). And I gained many new epic, nay, legendary anecdotes to last me another lifetime 😛

 

A very warm thank you to our kind hosts Michael, Potte, Lubomir and Mans! You guys are the best! And likewise to Jimmy, Mark & Kris. You guys were incredibly fun to travel with and it was nice getting to know you guys better!

 

Pics are added in the ‘Scandinavia Trip’ folders

June 2007: Spain – pics (another year later)

Ok, I guess keeping my weblog updated is not really my forte :-|. I’ve been extremely busy with work and uni since my last post. Especially my last quarter had an insane workload (think 50+ hours a week, seriously). I’m just really glad my courses are so incredibly interesting and my progress is going well, otherwise i’d never be able to keep this up :-S.

 

In the meantime I’ve been traveling in Scandinavia and had my 3rd visit to my lovely Italy! But first things first: the backpack trip to Spain in june last year! The fun thing about backpacking is that you meet a lot of people who are really passionate about traveling, so you can end up traveling around with people whom you might’ve met on totally different backpack trips. As was the case with this trip. Huiping and Yushan, two sisters from Singapore whom me and my friend met on my first Italy trip, happened to be backpacking through Europe at the time. Since I wanted to meet up with them again and I really needed a little break to the mediteranean climates, I played hooky for a little week (actually the professors were okay with it :p) and went to join their Spain leg of the trip.

 

The first part was four days of Barcelona. Although I had a lot of bad luck this time around (see last blog entry), Barcelona was still a really beautiful city to travel in. Although traveling with a party of three is not the ideal number, on the last day in Barcelona I met Ayako, A Japanese girl who was studying architecture in Berkeley, California, and we just had the most wonderful day traveling together (I will *never* forget the beauty of Parc Guell!), seeing loads of interesting buildings (private tourguide to Sagradia Familia = awesome!), talking a lot about cultural differences and travel experiences and…well…you’ll read more about it in the travel blog of my third Italy trip later :-). In the evening of that day when the four of us wanted to get something to eat, we even got invited to  dine/drink with a group of local Spanjards! Naturally, in the beginning we were a bit shy and unsure as to whether to join them or not, but we just went along with it. The result was just a marvelous evening with good food, good drinks (gotta love sangria!) and wonderfull company (wow, these people were even warmer than most Italians!). Sadly at midnight we had to say goodbye to them and Ayako, since we needed to catch our flight to Sevilla.

 

The next three days in Sevilla were all about relaxing! Sunbathing on the terrace of our youthhostel was just *so* nice. And Sevilla is just a really nice city to walk around in; it’s small enough to basically see everything in two days and there’s loads of lovely parcs and quaint districts! The youth hostel we were in also organized a visit to a pub where they performing the flamenco dance, which was well impressive, since the pacing was really fast and the gestures and dance moves were really intricate. I ended up that night exploring the somewhat limited but still lovely pubbing scene with a guy from New Zealand (New Zealanders are apparently called Kiwi’s 🙂 ), a Kiwi/scottish couple (they were traveling the world together for a year, respect!) and two girls from merry ol’ England, which was loads of fun (although it made me realise I’m just not the drinking type of student anymore ;-).

 

Well, that was basically my Spain trip in a nutshell. Although quite a bit of things went wrong, I ended up having a lot of fun and relaxment any way and it really made me love Spain (although not as much as Italy :p). I uploaded the pictures as well, so you can check them out if you want to.

 

Next up: my summer trip from last August to Denmark & Sweden!

Finally backpacking again: Spain

Wow, it really has been a long time ago. I know I had grand plans for backpacking in 2006, but lack of time and money did not permit me to follow through on them :’-(. But now I’ve ended my last week of the year at my new university by going on a little inbetween backpack trip to Spain. Specifically 4 days of Barcelona and 3 days of Sevilla! As ever, it was totally unpredictable and fun, although I did have quite a bit of bad luck this time around (troubles getting to my bankaccount, being stranded in the centre of Barcelona, etc 😦 ).

 

Since most of the cool pictures were taken by some lovely ladies I had the honor of accompanying, I’m gonna wait till I get those in the mail before writing a full wall of text about this one. I should be busy finding a summer vacation job anyway now, If I’m to have any chance of going to Greece at the end of this summer vacation :D.

New Year 2005/2006: London – pics at last

Hmm, ‘soon’ seems to be relative…ah well, at least the pics are only 1 month too late =].

 

You might notice the total absence of new year’s eve pictures. I shan’t be lying that I was way too drunk to make pics..the sad truth is that basically everything that could go wrong, went wrong (thank you very much, mr Murphy). Without going into details, it suffices to say that our new year’s eve lacked fireworks, alcohol and transportation; two of which are oh so vital components of a succesful new year’s eve. Ah well, still had a bit of fun, and quite a long walk home :s.

 

Some mental notes about the London trip:

1) Ye Gods, the women are fabulous! Those thick London accents alone are *way* too charming. And personally, I could really appreciate the somewhat stoic and stylish demeanor the people near the centre of London seemed to posess.

2) The general atmosphere in London actually seems colder and more distanciated than in the Netherlands, if that is actually possible :-|.

3) We saw a grey Lamborghini Mercielago over there…me and my friend couldn’t help but to be appalled with how someone could buy a super expensive car like that and then choose such a bland color for it.

 

Oh, and after my first year of intensive travelling, I’ve been thinking about what a perfect country would constitute for me:

– The spoken language would be English, preferably with a thick accent (*wow*)

– The temperament would be Italian (love la dolce vita)

– The social system would be Dutch (I don’t need to go into this one, right? :P)

– The women would be…well…I guess there’s something to say for every country 😉

– The cooks would be Italian (absolutely *no* discussion possible there)

– Culture would be Italian (yeah, I’m biased ^^)

– Law enforcement would be handled by the Brits (I kinda liked CCTV…still being to feel safe in a big city like London is quite a feat)

– Infrastructure would be Dutch (which prolly would result into taxes being Dutch too…ah well :-S)

 

A Utopia, to be sure, but one can still dream, can’t one?

 

Next stop: Italy in spring/summer again, probably accompanied by a full backpack trip to either Greece or France..looking forward to it!

 

PS: I’ve updated some of my other photo albums too

About ‘a million to one’ chances

Ok, back in our beautiful frost-ridden country!

 

First of all: Happy new year!!1!

 

But really, you know how the probability of some things happening just really has to be a million to one?

I think I’ll join Terry Pratchet and Douglas Adams in their statement that those exact chances seem to result in the thing happening 100% of the time.

 

Imagine standing in London Stansted airport, just minding your business and looking around…and *bam*…suddenly, a spark of recognition! No, it just *can’t* be! Ohmygod, she’s looking with the same flabbergasted, completely astonished look I must be sporting at this exact moment. And the smile just seals the deal.

 

probability factor = Meeting your ex * at london airport * at 4 o’clock in the morning * friggin standing behind her in the check-in line = aproximately a million to one!

 

Ps: London story & photos coming soon, *way* too sleepy now

Friends Album

Gheh, I had the bodacity of putting my graduation and friends photo album online.

 

If you don’t wan’t your pic on the web, just gimme a nudge :P…but not too hard, because please *do* remember I have worse pics of most of you! ;-D If you want the current one replaced or feel left out; send me a new one! =)

 

Note to self: I wonder if this move is considered social suicide online..hmmm, ah well :-]

October 2005: Italiatrip #2

Finally, *done*.

I actually managed to get the photos of my second Italy trip online. Have I already mentioned how incredibly much I *love* that country :P? So…This time I basically wanted to finish the first Italy trip for real, since we had this little Paris detour the last time after leaving Venice :D. A mate of mine, Rudi, was doing his graduation thesis in Verona, so that gave me all the excuse I needed to go back to mia bella Italia! Once again, being the naieve lad I am, I actually thought I could, you know, try to *plan* my trip a bit. But lo and behold, enter the sarcasm Gods! What started out as a straightforward visit to my friend in Verona and some solo traveling through the rest of northern Italy, actually (yet again) became a trip into beauty, weirdness and the unexpected (Sounding *so* Discovery Channel right now 😐 ).

 

Soon after arriving in Verona (such a beautiful place…when you can actually *see* it through the everlasting fog :D) I managed to throw my somewhat boring original travel plan to smithereens. So I kinda wound up celebrating my birthday in Firenze…which is actually kinda ironic, because so did Jurgen on our first Italy trip :D. And on my birthday I just had the best dinner ever (Oh…My…GOD! Those Italians can *cook*! Just remembering that meal makes my mouth water….WOW!).

 

After Firenze the next destination was Roma, at which point the sarcasm gods decided it was time for some tomfoolery, basically making it impossible for me to visit my great love, Roma. Although I was extremely bummed out that I’d have to wait till next time till I could be rejoined with the Eternal City, in hindsight I’m *extremely* grateful this happened. Were it not for this setback, I’d never have been to Cinque Terre; a region which even rivals mighty Roma in terms of beauty! Take it from me: if you *ever* want to have an ideal vacation, go there! Preferably before or after the tourist season. You’ll just be totally enthralled by how picturesque, relaxed and mind-boggingly beautiful this region is. Just watch the photos, ’nuff said!

 

Thanks to Rudi, player extra-ordinaire while still being one hell of a friend, for sharing the loveliness that is Italy. La Dolce Vita, mate!.

 

Ps: Oh, soon I’ll be celebrating New Year’s Eve in London with another mate of mine, Wouter. I’m quite interested in how long it will take me this time before I actually start uploading stuff. Anyways, looking forward to it quite a bit!

July 2005: Italiatrip #1

Ok, finally added the pics of my first Italian backpack trip. It’s kind of dire that I only uploaded these Italy pics just now, while I already finished my second vacation there :$. Ah well, anyway, these pics are all from my 3 week backpack vacation in the summer of 2005 in the most beautiful country on the globe. Me and a  friend of mine, Jurgen, set out to travel throughout Italy, to enjoy its gorgeous cities, cultural riches and other beautiful things ;-). The fantastic thing about backpacking is that you get to meet a lot of people from different nationalities & cultures! Somehow, *every* day of our vacation turned out quite differently from what we expected..in a good way, though :D. Dammn, can’t wait to get back, I miss Italy :’-|!

 

Tip for the traveler: Although Italy is a magnificent country which is more than worth visiting, do be weary that dealing with the locals can be quite different. Some of them are extraordinarily nice (usually just the normal people on the street), but a lot (mostly people in bureaucratic functions) can be extremely rude or complacent towards tourists. Knowing a bit of italian can do wonders ;-).