TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

From time to time, I delight in checking my site meter on how people stumbled into my virtual world. Surprisingly, a substantial number of my unknown visitors fortuitously rolled in here while on a search plight of some sexy holy grail key word/s via Google, Yahoo and MSN. Many of these search words and phrases were actually funny, if not, wickedly hilarious. Because of this, Dutchman and I, now have a new enjoyable evening pastime... “ Hah, kijk (look)! Someone is again looking for Pinay sex! ”, exclaims the Dutchman as he grins ear to ear while raising his eyebrows trying to tease me. “ Ah well, we Pinays plead guilty on being the most sought after female specie. ” Well, are we actually? Using the right key words can give good search results. Since my blog entries cover various and extensive topics from the weakly dailies to the boldful tribune, thus the risk for the uncanny and perverted google’r and yahoo’er to crash land into my blog is pretty high. Below are at least the 30 lates...

JERSEY ISLAND (U.K. Channel Islands) The Dutchman is finally back last Friday from the island of Jersey near the French border. Jersey, together with Guernsey, are a well-known off-shore banking havens (just like Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Carribean). The money making business is centrally located in the island's capital, St. Helier. And get this, be ready to be green with envy... the local citizenry pays a cut-rate flat tax of only 20%! Dutchman brought with him some of the Jersey gorgeous scenes. The weather worked in favor with him this time, so the captured panoramas were almost picture perfect. 1st Foto: The spectacular Mt. Orgueil Castle by the Gorey beach in Jersey 2nd Foto: A yacht haven in one of the villages with a picturesque view of the buildings along Jersey's coastline. Dutchman forgot the name of this place. I think this could be St. Aubin. 1st Foto: How the locals in Jersey island live, in St. Aubin. Posh eh? 2nd Foto: German bunker. The island was occu...

Surfing on the internet on the Sex Education subject (now you know what I do during my spare time), I found a comparison study between the English and the Dutch Sex Education approaches in the classroom (for 14 and 15 year olds). The whole article was a fascinating read. To read it, just CLICK HERE. The English and the Dutch are neighbors but culturally they are extremely lodged apart. The way I see it, the English are more conservative in matters of sex than the Dutch. I have read before that the Dutch is at the bottom list, garnering one of the lowest score (rate between 8.4-4.1 to a 1000 birth rates) in teenage pregnancy in Europe whilst the English scored on top (rate of 40 to 1000 birth rates). Hence the Dutch-English stark comparisons. Here are some of the contentious items I have found in the study. It said that Dutch sex education is similar to the English sex education, but the subject on both ends is approached differently. “In the Netherlands, politicians have tended to pass...

I guess the whole world know that the Netherlands was the first country to legalize same-sex marriages. But many people do not know that this controversial and divisive policy had to struggle through a historical dispute and debate in chambers of the Dutch parliament. Despite the liberal attitudes espoused by many Dutch, the ratification of this policy into law produced negative sentiments amongst the conservatives in the country. And once more, the flatland has put itself in the frontier of the changing times... “A new law, still in preparation, will make it possible for same-sex couples in the Netherlands to adopt foreign children. Although Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner says it will change little in practice, the political parties behind the new law want to put an end to this form of 'discrimination' sooner rather than later. Under current legislation, same-sex couples in the Netherlands can adopt, but only children born and living in the country. They are not eligible to...

Our leg muscles could do some exercising this weekend, so off we went to the Centrum. Upon arriving, Dutchman quickly told me that he will be in Mediamarkt. He wants to buy a case for the new Fuji camera (uh huh, finally we bought one). So I left him and went browsing the open market stalls in the square. I would have loved to take pictures of the olives and cheese stands but the camera was with the Dutchman, perhaps some other time I will. Dutch candies called snoep (or snoepen, or snoepjes). They are seldom sold by pack in candy stalls unless you buy them in the supermarket. Here you buy it per 100 grams, and you can have all the variety you want! We thought the candies looked nice because of the colors. It was not really a beautiful day, the weather was very Dutch – rain showers, windy, cold, grey and gloomy. After Mediamarkt and the open market, we met again and proceeded to the direction of Neude. Unfortunately, our favorite cafe, the Café Le Journal was full. The waitress told ...

*Sigh* - My current job doesn’t force me to kick those warm duvets out of the bed and out of the way in the early mornings of 6:30… the plea is just not there, instead I cower and submit to my unjustifiable desires. How difficult life can be? Needless to say, I am starting to really feel tired. In fact I should not blog this, I think. I work as a Sales Manager in a Dutch IT company. The pay is alright but I am reaching to the point of squeezing the last nerve of patience for this job. I need something that fits my personality, that will keep my talents chiseled, my knowledge growing, my experience enriched, my ideals tested, and myself happy. I think its time to look for greener pastures… (Darn, what took you so long?! *slaps face*) I have been staring at my CV (Curriculum Vitae, this is how they call the Resume here in Europe) for hours like I am looking into a jumbled entry and suddenly I see nothing but only a white tunnel starting to slowly spin, then faster, more faster, until suc...

GREET ME with SNOW Instead of a promising spring, March greeted us with a heavy downfall of snow. The whole of north Europe is blockaded in majestic sheath of whiteness. The temperature has dropped tremendously too. Last night (Thursday), the lowest point was a freezing -20.6C! BBRRRR... Such a cute pair! Foto by Gerrit Waterlander of NU.nl DUTCH CABARET My first Dutch Cabaret experience was last Tuesday. Dutchman and I, together with another couple (Dutchman’s colleague) watched this cabaret show somewhere in Rembrandtplein, Amsterdam. In the English dictionary, cabaret means: floor show, a series of acts... but in Holland it means: stand-up comedy show. I did not really mind that the whole show was in Dutch but since I just arrived fresh from my Madrid trip the other night, yeah at 1AM(!), and went straight to work the next day, I was not in my best night-out mood. I felt like a walking zombie. Well, throughout the show, Dutchman kept elbowing me; I was dozing on and off! Geez ha-ha...

It has been snowing like cats and dogs here since yesterday! We were in Amsterdam last night to watch this Cabaret (Stand up Comedy Show) and boy was I pissed because I forgot my hat *again* at home. I hate having snow on my hair. All my blow drying effort went down the drain. Hrmp. And a s a result of the heavy deluge of snow, heavy traffic today raped the highways, trains were late, some didn’t even run. But kids love it, and so did my colleagues at work. Breaks were spent throwing snowballs at each other. Watchout hehe. So here are some pictures of White Holland today... Langlaufen in het centrum van Amsterdam – by Bastiaan Schönhage Is someone lost country-skiing in the heart of Amsterdam? Hello... this is not the Alps meneer (mister), haha. I guess this guy is grabbing every snow chance to his advantage, as it seldoms snow like this in the Netherlands. Well go for it! 1st Foto: Terrasje pikken op de Nieuwmarkt - by Michiel Bontenbal. 2nd Foto: Shetlanders in de Drentse sneeuw - b...