A place to breathe….

I checked the weather forecast one week prior to our trip to Annecy in France and it says cloudy but not raining. I never checked again and to my dismay I woke up on a Thursday morning with raindrops that I can hear from my bedroom, Oh great just what I needed!!!

I got up quarter to 8 and had my shower. After a lifetime inside the bathroom I can already hear some movements from the kitchen, meaning eva is awake already so i better move.

I was expecting that we will not push with the trip because of the weather but i guess Eva was more enthusiastic about this trip so I didn’t say a word. We fixed ourselves and took the 9:27 bus and meet Francis (her friend from GOL) at the rail station.

And at 10:15 we are already heading for France. Wow for the first time I experienced checkpoints from the the borders. I have my passport and permit with me and after that I doze off most of the trip.

It was raining so hard when we arrived and it stayed that way till we left but the funny thing is I really enjoyed the place. I didn’t mind that we were 3 and I didn’t feel outcasted or something like that. I really enjoyed the place, it was small and yet so beautiful. What made it really exceptional are the canals, it seems like I’m in little Venice of Italy. The sound of the water gives me comfort that I cannot explain.

It’s a small place but you will be able to see how beautiful Europe is. The architectural design is something unique to Europe, the small streets are very charming. It seems like you are being taken back on time. The place is very romantic and I’ve heard that it’s impossible to enjoy the place during summer because it’s packed with visitors.

Their lake is also exceptional. It’s situated at the foot of the mountain. Gosh, it’s breathtaking. What more on a clear sky day?

I’m definitely going back on a sunny day.

To see the pictures of Annecy: http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=aeloxubz.2lew0sj7&Uy=niuc9r&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1

Another colleague said goodbye to me this afternoon. We weren’t close but I had a couple of great times with this guy and his wife when Meena was still here. He is going back to his country and might be reassigned to some other place.

I felt sad when we hugged and said our goodbyes. I always see him at his desk and it will be very unusual not to see him anymore starting next week. I guess that’s life, people come and go in our lives and it’s up to us if we want to make them stay or not.

Stay or not in a sense that if we want to deepen the relationship that regardless of the distance you know you will still be friends. I guess I didn’t exerted an effort for this person and I really know this is goodbye for us.

Bye Jikoo… I hope to see you again in this lifetime maybe by that time I will exert an effort to get to know you more.

A friend asked me this question a few weeks ago. Looking back, I don’t actually remember my initial reaction to this question.

This question was asked to me several times a few months ago and I can remember clearly that I have the same answer: I’m staying here for two years and after that I’m going home =)

Not that my plan of going home changed, definitely at the end of the day I still want to go home but when is the indefinite part.

There was no desire for me before to explore other possibilities in other countries but now I actually want to try to live in US, Canada, Australia even Middle East.

Someday I want to say I was able to experience living in these places, share my inputs on how it was like based on culture, food, nature, economy and others. Info not coming from books, internet or other people’s point of view but from my own experiences.

Isn’t it great that if somebody talks about Italy, I can say I’ve been there and food is relatively cheap but transportation is a disaster or if somebody wants to go and visit Singapore, I can say go and try the the Jumbo Restaurant because their pepper crab is the best in Singapore. And if somebody ask me about Madrid, I will definitely say do not even think about visiting that wax museum, it’s not worth your euros! And so much more….

Places that I go to and people that I’ve met influenced who I am right now, how I think and even my plans in the future. I know I’ve grown so much since I left Manila almost a year ago. My horizon have explored beyond my imagination and I cannot thank HIM enough for all the blessings and opportunities and I know all of these are just the beginning.

There’s only one BUT in this beautiful scenario, will still there be a place for me back home when it’s finally time to go back? Will I grow too much that I will not be able to relate anymore to people that I love and what if I’ve changed so much that people will not know me anymore…

I guess we really cannot have the best of everything, we just have to be brave enough to go on and see what happens after =) and i’m willing to take the challenge.

the sweetest thing was said to me this afternoon through chat…

amidst the conversation about my plans, my feelings, where i want to be and just about everything and anything…

archie said: lam ko mahihilo ka din sa kakalibot sa buong mundo, at pag nahilo ka andito lang ako

english translation: i know you’ll also get tired of travelling the world and if you get tired i will be here.

mas maganda sa tagalog. thanks tokno! mwah

i just printed my booking confirmation for my birthday trip to Paris…

oh my God I am so excited =). we are still looking for a bed and breakfast, we will decide tomorrow and book it as well.

gosh i can’t believe… ahhhhhhhhhhhhh i’m super excited!

It’s 16:23 and on the contrary of what you are thinking I still have so many things to do that I opted to stop for a while and do some blogging…

We went to Yvoire, France last Sunday for a day trip. I saw this add about a nice medieval place in France that is accessible via a cruise from Mont Blanc. Nothing better to do so eva and I decided to go on the first trip on a Sunday morning. I enjoyed the cruise, it was relaxing and I was looking forward to visiting Yvoire.

Arriving at Yvoire:
Hmmmm it’s really a medieval place and perhaps I expected too much that’s why I was a little disappointed. It wasn’t as magical as I thought it would be but it was a nice place to eat and roam around. Other than that there was really nothing special on the place which is contrary to what all my friends said. Hmmm was I just not in the mood to be in a very romantic small town? Maybe.

Anyways the trip itself is quite cheap but the expensive part are the things that I bought which i shouldn’t have bought at all =( but what I really like is the home decoration that I bought for my mom. She will definitely like it, shipping will be an issue though coz it’s a little heavy. Let us see.

We just went around and eat in a nice restaurant though of course service wasn’t so great. We were having a hard time trying to figure out the menu.

So after a hearty meal, we went to some shops and headed back to the ship. It was a short but very relaxing trip but I feel so tired after.

To view the photos: http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=aeloxubz.4dnkgvgz&Uy=-m9orkp&Ux=0

"Don’t Whine!" is frequently heard from our office back in IATA Philippines. My ex boss hates it when we whine and because of this it made us very aware (conscious is not the term) on how we talk to her and eventually on how we talk to anybody.

Looking back now, I am actually very thankful for the hard lesson learned back in Manila. We are not allowed to whine about life, work and anything in general. We were not allowed to say no to something unless proven not to be possible. It wasn’t easy and it didn’t come out automatically from us but the years of training from my exboss made it so natural from us.

Why am I saying this now? It is because what I can hear here are all whining… For simple things that you can just automatically do instead of whining. People don’t realize that when they whine about small things it badly reflects on their character.

I am not saying we shouldn’t say anything if we think something is not right or if we believe something should be done better but we should take into consideration on how we should deliver the message.

What we say whether we like it or not gives the impression to other people of who we are so be careful….

I received three invitations today:

a. Trip to Romania - Lumi is attending a wedding in Romania in June and she asked me if I want to come with her and I immediately said yes. I’ve already printed the requirements for the visa (they are not part of the Schengen Treat) and will discuss with her tomorrow. It will be nice to go Romania with a native and with Jaana and Lumi around plus the husband of Lumi to drive us around it surely sounds fun already.

b. Trip to New Jersey - I talked to my friend Meena this morning and of course after being nagged of not pushing through with my trip to India last December she asked me to visit her in New Jersey. Logistically speaking it will be okay, after my trip to Canada maybe I can pass by New Jersey but visa wise I am not sure I want to go through the nitty gritty process of US Visa application but of course it will be a great chance and it’s always better to get it from here rather than Manila which will be next to impossible.

c. Lunch with our boss tomorrow - yup after showing great effort in this non stop changes in our process maps we were invited for a free lunch tomorrow. too bad not in any fancy restaurant but in the cafeteria hahahahha. no problem just the fact that wayne invited us is really a huge thing for me already. wait till Agostino invites us…

I received flowers today, lilies of the valley. They are from Evelyn. She need not say a word, she knows how low I was feeling. And I really appreciate the gesture.

I said goodbye to a good friend today. We may or we may not see each other again but I want to remember, I need to remember how it was like having him around and if my memory fail me at least I will have this blog to read all over again to make me remember.

The hard part of working in a company where I work is you will meet people from all walks of life and from all over the world. Geneva is just a place for all of us where we stop for a while and then move on to the next journey and eventually two of my good friends that I’ve met here have already continued their journey away from Geneva. The last one left today.

Geneva is a place where it’s perfect to find a friend, you are both away from your comfort zones, away from people that you love and make you feel loved. And it was a bonus that I found one. We are not the kind of friends that will hang out all the time or will talk every minute of the day, on the contrary we usually just have occassional dinners or accident coffees or bumping into each other in the hallway but this friend was different.

I only have a few people that I feel comfortable talking about a few things and usually they have their specialties e.g. friend 1 i talk about shopping, friend 2 i talk about politics, friend 3 i talk about politics in the office, friend 4 i talk about love life and those stuff but with him I talk about everything and anything though mostly nonsense and I can’t remember any single instance that I didn’t enjoy the conversation.

i will miss you yaar… my congratulations to your wedding and my best wishes to your soon to be bride. sorry if i can’t be there to witness this wonderful event in your life but i would be very happy to comment on the pictures =)

till our roads meet again my friend, i will never ever forget….