waiting for godot.

or preview master #21...am very close to sitting next to my boss and bugging her the way i do cybs when we're in our beds na but i can't sleep and she's on her way to la la land.

(to the tune of no doubt): don't sleep!...don't sleep!

...but i do have a few happy thoughts!

1. The Missing Shirt, after more than a month, has returned from the laundromat! bless the girl who remembered and called me pa.

2. 2 december projects that would've given us hell are no longer happening. enter handel's messiah.

3. i think (cross your toes) i'm past the Chocoholic State.

mandaluyong mental, how may i help you?
take me home, good year, take me home...

sing with me now: how do you solve a problem...

...like workaday world woes?

you ask your officemates what their favorite childhood games and toys were!

ME:

games
1. 10-20
2. jackstones (but not the pillow-y ones)
3. cops and robbers
4. sardines

toys
1. my little twinstar house...i see it pink, 3/4 moon shape...and it had an elevator and rooms...
2. smurf coloring books! teka, di ata toy yun...

confusion says.

i give up...i'm truly a luddite.

everytime i "cross-post" or whatever from cyberlaundry.blogspot.com all the entries here double.

ambot!

euro destination #8: belgium and beyond

winner moments:

• train ride to bastogne, catching the sunrise.
• bus ride to bastogne. trees everywhere. could just hear papa winters screaming "move forward!"
  getting to bastogne (even if there wasn't any way we could go to the ACTUAL battlefield, harumph).

• winner park (or should i say forest? or setting for merchant & ivory film?) near timi's house

• taking a tram through the forests of tervuren, and seeing cyclists on the paths (too bad i didn't see any horses, with their masters hitting the drugstore or bakery)
  

• hanging out in leuven with timi and Da Sistah (the closest i got to wishing like hell i had bled for new school)
• bringing lavender and cheese and tea and more cheese home, knowing we got it at a bargain

• hitting antwerp with cybs and realizing wow i can understand the trains!

these boots were made for walking and that's just what they'll do

euro destination #7: amsterdam

winner moments:

• bicycle! bicycle!
• the closest i got to anne frank's house: the sign outside. the line was long, and unlike the other tourist attractions we went to, everybody was quiet.
• first euro rainbow
• smelling (but not buying) pot, and seeing just how casual everyone was about it, hee hee

euro destination #6: france

winner moments:

• realizing it still smells the same (call me weird, but cities have different smells to me. a balikbayan box from NY smells different from a balikbayan box from tokyo, PROMISE).


• seeing that the skater boys were still there near the eiffel tower (i had a big crush on one of them--complete with detailed fantasy--when i was 14)


• the closest i've gotten to dear st. petersburg so far: pont alexandre III


• being the only brown people walking around a medieval town

euro destination #5: athens

sudden thoughts:

• i really really like it here! even if i can’t read all the signs…
• myGAD ang sarap ng pagkain.

winner moments:

• souvlaki! gyro! falafel! fatay!
• the erechtheion (dedicated daw to the worship of Attica, Athena and Poseidon-Erechtheus), next to the parthenon. insides crying kasi ang ganda nya.
• running into a british television crew filming! (take me take me i'll carry anything!)
• the grace of stone and marble forming a face or hand or wrist

happy holidaze.

a little (literally) christmas cheer, Javier-Gregory Style:

a. baby christmas tree from SM Hypermarket, under P50 and 2 feet

b. trimmings: a belt and LOTS of earrings

and of course, all our little friends from The Transformers, Mother Russia, and Monsters Inc.

kodakan! (i.e. pix with actual people in them)

marco at palatine hill, looking for VC and taking pix in between.

1st euro self-portrait (venice)

(sleeping in airport in athens, because their train stops at midnight but our flight was at 6ish)

ah...takes me back to my childhood.

*photo taken by My Evil Sistah

busted.

*sky from paris to amsterdam. my brain is stuck somewhere here.

the PTB (powers that be) have blocked blogger.com at the office as well, so i won't get to post that often, nor read other people's blogs (not even the ones that are for work, like thefashpack.blogspot.com, dang it!)

hay. consuelo de bobo? the usual suspects on cinemax. yey!

ep2 of veronica mars on youtube. triple yey!

in other news: war and peace is getting better. come 12MN the battle scenes become one big blur in my head, but at least i don't feel like everybody is named nikolai anymore :) now am so so glad i got grapes of wrath in high school and not this (this, and anna karenina, i believe, were reserved for the naughty students).

forget what we're told before we get too old

show me a garden that's bursting into life

euro destination #4: rome (part 2)

other sudden thoughts:

• myGAD ang mahal ng toma dito.
• "myLEGS, i can't feel my legs! i have no legs!"

winner moments:

in general:

• walking around the city at night and running into a really cool, grandparents-y couple from new york
• having an existential, waiting for (godot) bus 175 moment
• having a dear Lord, don't deport me moment, when a supermarket security guard had me empty my bag (no English, only pantomimes) because it was bleeping, thanks to a purchase in another store. be still my little brown heart. and to think I kept looking around, wondering who the thief was!

the Vatican:

• bless me father, we are constantly sinning (thornbirds! stigmata! mama mia!)
• singing mission: impossible theme while waiting to see D’Sistine Chapel
• seeing the 3D-ish, how-on-EARTH-did-he-do-that Sistine Chapel

the colosseum (am i not merciful??):

• overhearing a bunch of americans saying, “imagine how much blood was spilled here…all in the name of entertainment…” and hearing the wind agree.

regrets:

• not seeing La Bocca della Verità and getting my European Audrey photo (i had rice crispies and water at tiffany’s)

euro destination #4: rome (part 1)

sudden thoughts:

• these guys have no qualms about blatantly checking you out. interesteenk.
• oh GAWD i hope you’re not a minor.
• oh GAWD, you ARE a minor.

winner moments:

• palatine hill, the (i believe) forbes park of ancient rome. those stones—and trees—were seriously talking. and the view from there rocks.
• sunset at isola tiberina…wouldn’t mind time stopping with me there
  

regrets:

• i didn't figure out just how much walking we were doing until it was much, much, too late.

euro destination #3: pisa

sudden thoughts:

• am too tired to take a train and a bus, can we not?
• (half an hour later): BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
  

winner moments:

• watching people have their “carrying the weight of the tower” pic taken
• buying coke from the cute, i-don’t-think-you’re-italian-but-ate-and-i-will-take-you-home-anyway-man

regrets:

• not taking home the cute, i-don’t-think-you’re-italian-but-ate-and-i-will-take-you-home-anyway-man (or at least having our picture taken with him!)

euro destination #2: florence

sudden thoughts:

• i. heart. florence.
• i. seriously. heart. florence.
  

winner moments:

• going up more than five flights of stairs, backpacks and all, to check in
• two women staring this little brown girl down as she took a low angle shot of D'Duomo
• taking a bus to fiesole to get a winner view of florence. must. go. back.

regrets:

• i couldn't stay there forever.

euro destination #1: venice

sudden thoughts:

• o agent ben, my agent ben, where art thou?
• hmm...does anyone actually live here?

winner moments:

• first d'real gelato
• first self-portrait in europe with cybs! the last time we were there, we were young ang ignorant

regrets:

• we weren't there long enough to see it at night

top euro moments.

the closest i've gotten to dear st. petersburg so far: pont alexandre III

the closest i got to getting teary-eyed: a (i think) baby temple for athena next to the parthenon. these women were talking to me.

the closest i got to my roman catholic self: pope john paul II's grave. it was cloaked in...soul stuff. but i couldn't get myself to take a picture, kind of...morbid.

the closest i got to anne frank's house: the sign outside. the line was long, i was broke; unlike the other tourist attractions we went to, everybody was quiet.

the closest i got to wishing like hell i had begged my parents for a trust fund for my new york MA: the shady trees in timi's university in leuven, belgium.

six countries in seventeen days.

italy, greece, france, belgium; amsterdam for four hours, luxembourg for under two.

europe with my parents is like the amazing race, only there's no cash prize at the end, and quitting is never an option.

will write meaningful things and post pictures when i get my brain un-jetlagged and lose my eurail legs.