TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

Before I talk about the favorite subject of the Dutch: PRICE synonymous to MONEY and their national pastime: COMPARING PRICES of goods and services (even after weeks and months of having bought the item/service - just so they can validate their purchase decision that they indeed got the best deal, lol, so typical Dutch!)... allow me to post some pictures that I took outside of my hotel in Amsterdam. A subdued street right outside my hotel room in the south of Amsterdam late at night... and, how it looks like early in the morning at 8AM. I stayed last Wednesday until Friday in Amsterdam for work. Although I live just 40 kilometers away from Amsterdam in another city (Utrecht), the company made a decision to book me instead into a hotel because the first nights event will be finished late into the evening. Nothing is better than having a good nights rest and going to work fresh the next day. The only thing I regretted was not taking a picture of the canals at night (left my camera in the...

“Without a doubt, when I came back from my business trip Saturday evening, the Dutchman announced that tomorrow Sunday we are going to the Kaapse Bossen [in English, Cape Forests] for his sister’s birthday bash. The Kaapse Bossen is located in the south of Utrecht province, between Doorn and Maarn. Ah, the news echoed like a beautiful song in my ears... I love walking in the fresh autumn forest. Many Dutch nature parks have a sundry of walking routes. I love feeling the abundant fallen leaves, now in hues of bright yellows and oranges, while they make squishy noises beneath my feet. I love harvesting nuts from the forest floor. Picking interesting looking twigs and leaves too and putting them into my basket for accessory alibis that I can later use in decorating the home. I love looking out for uniquely shaped and colorful mushrooms to photograph. Oh, I love the silence. It’s like a gentle melody that calmly soothes and caresses our stressed earthly system.” To continue reading the ar...

It was surprisingly warm in London, 18C to 20C. Perhaps, even warmer. I’ve regretted bringing my jacket as it just added to my heavy load. When traveling for work, what’s really a hassle is the laptop; it’s heavy. At the end of the day you feel like a limping old woman with one shoulder down. If only packing laptops inside the luggage is fine... My hotel’s boring and grubby view: the Victoria Station in Westminster. Because of last month’s incident where security officials found an explosive material made of liquid inside the plane, the British security and immigration has since become paranoid. I am not slightly exaggerating the paranoia here and I will tell a little bit of my experience, albeit, later in my post. And, despite the busy schedule, I was able to take a few pictures of London. I’ve been in London before but never really had the chance to take souvenir pictures (since I didn’t have the digital camera back then). I will let them pictures do the talking. I stole a few minut...

There are things that I really miss from home. Yeah, I still call the Philippines home even if I live here in Holland and have become partly Dutch. Overcoming the Dutch weather The sun and the stable warm temperature back home I have missed for a looooong time. How could one not? The weather played a large part on the first few years adjustment phase of my expatriated life in the Netherlands. I have somehow developed a fervent love and hate relationship with the Dutch weather --- I struggled through sticks and stones my first dark Dutch winter. It was a complete nightmare. I wished I was transplanted back then back to the warm islands. I wanted so bad to escape the sinister of events that unfolded before my very eyes: Sitting across me in the hospitals’ pristine white-walled clinic is a specialist. He just diagnosed me of having a mysterious allergy towards cold weather. The only cure available he said is to move to a warmer-stabler climate country, or hope, that in the next couple of ...