transposable element

when there are four relatives coming over for a visit, there are more logistics to take care of than you’d initially think of. you get excited with the prospect of meeting them and giving everyone a big bear-hug at the airport, but what happens next? off to the hotel because there’s no space in your flat and by law, you’re not allowed to accommodate such number of people in an 80 sq meter flat anyway. you’ll have to verify with the hotel if they have family rooms, because the same sq meter/person rule apply to hotels. how do you get them to the hotel? 5 people will fit in a normal car, sure, but what about the luggages? of four people, mind you. how do they get around? taxis are convenient, but prohibitive because of the costs. while public transport here in germany is quite efficient, lots of interesting sights are off the main routes and train tickets for four might come out as expensive as renting a vehicle. so rent-a-car it is! except we’ll need a mini-van, at least a 7-seater, if jan and i are playing tourguides. and such a car for 5 days including insurances, ladies and gentlemen, costs somewhere between 450 to 600 euro! nearly as much to fly to the philippines!

now i’m really starting to feel guilty they have to make a stop here…

this jurassic little piece of an excuse for a pc crashed and i’m having trouble re-installing my yahoo messenger. if you’ve got a message, you’ve got a better chance of getting an answer by emailing me instead at paruparongbNOSPAM@gmail.com. remove NOSPAM.

when i was younger, we would often spend holy week in my father’s hometown, where senakulo, pabasa, visita iglesia, and the panata are still being practiced til now. not that i’m missing it, but, ironically, jan will grow up with a very different context of easter celebrations.

each egg just about a a centimeter wide, these tiny eggs were made of cut-out cardboard and crushed brown egg shells. we used it to decorate the self-made photo frame jan gave to ur-oma (mother of jan’s lola).

still made of cardboard, this time of two sheets, with a barbecue stick stuck in the middle like a lollipop. on one side, we glued broken egg shells which were previously dyed. with a photo of jan working on this artwork glued on the other side, this one went to oma.

our easter egg tree. probably where the two cultures find common ground in celebrating easter: it IS like christmas.

you know that saying about getting up from the wrong side of the bed? yeah, right, today is one of them. i woke up with a nasty inclination to snap hubby’s and jan’s heads off, temper boiling at 7 am. it didn’t help that jan decided to be his annoying best this morning, refusing to get his glass of rice milk from the microwave until it’s boiling, making me plead to let me change his diapers and clothes, and flatly refusing to wear a jacket. after half an hour, i was no longer pleading. i was screaming like hell and banging doors, even the neighbors two floors up must have woken up, thinking the FBI is breaking through their very own flat.

no wonder my bloggingberks inbox is down to 15 unread messages, from 64 unread threads (that translates to more than a hundred emails!). wanna see a sample of the blogkada’s brand of kakulitan? go check this one out! these guys are the ultimate therapy against bad moods!

Happy Easter to all of you!

PinoyExpats is up, presenting views and telling stories of pinoys working in europe. go visit!

blogkadahan’s current theme this round is LOVE. a much much delayed post-valentines’ tribute, hehe.click on the image to read my contribution. and while you’re there, read my berk’s entries too, and marvel at the different facets of pinoy lovin’…

woohoo, visa approved! my sister and family are coming over for a visit. actually, they’ll be touring europe and dropping by a few days in germany. to see me? well, just partly. it’s more like to drop my habilins. had i not been in this part of europe, germany probably wouldn’t have been in their to-see list, hehe… good for me, at least i can have my stores of salonpas and polvoron re-stocked. and, we might get to hitch hike our way to legoland, woohoo!

while the rest of germany was saturated with sunshine and was basking in the surprising 20 degree weather, we went to the north coast, off the east sea, where temperatures refused to rise beyond 6 degrees. had this trip not been planned for over a month prior, i would have taken the train back home and left hubby to his conference. and besides, jan was having a ball anyway, rain or shine. we explored the harbor, watched the ships and cruise liners, and window-shopped in sophienhof, a relatively big shopping mall reminiscent of ayala town center. our hotel was situated right at the tip of the harbor, about 500 meters from the main railway station. not a very good choice if you want rest and relaxation, but the passing trains and ships out the window proved to be a blessing in keeping jan entertained even while indoors. we went to the beach, sure, jan armed with his shovel and bucket. but after half an hour, our feet were frozen and the whipping wind is so chilling, we decided to give it up. the third day proved to be sunnier than the first two, but no less colder. enough is enough! we made a last trip to see the aquariums and sea lions at the institute for marine biology and made the more than 500-km drive back home, watching the car’s tempearature display rise to more than 12 degrees from where we started. interesting how the temperatures vary within one country, isn’t it?

oh well. it wasn’t that bad. jan enjoyed the trip notwithstanding. oh and yeah, allow me to brag a bit: hubby got to take home the poster prize!

singapore, UK, egypt, new zealand, hongkong. we may be in any one of those places around this time next year. no fixed plans yet, but we’re considering the possibilities very carefully. we’re eager of exploring new terrain, but we won’t go unarmed. as early as now, we have travel guides and relevant websites bookmarked for further perusal. and while the idea of relocating (yet again!) sometimes overwhelms me, i can’t help but get excited. only someone with a lust for travel and exploration would understand why we’d give up a comfortable and relatively good life here in germany to try the waters somewhere else. ahh, my feet are itching and my heart is skipping, it’s a wonder i’m still sitting anchored here!

if money was no object, we won’t be anywhere else than in the philippines. we live a very modest lifestyle, even on the brink of being spartan by german standards, but we can’t live in a hut. and we owe it to jan to give him access to good schools. those are the only realities that’s keeping us from settling over there.

but my husband is in love with asia. it’s where you really feel alive, he said. whatever that means. fine with me; i won’t argue. each kilometer that brings me nearer to the philippines raises my cheer-level up a notch.

-o-

frankfurt. nürnberg. freiburg. berlin. aachen. trier. köln. kassel. heidelberg. bonn. just some of the major german cities i’ve been to. next stop: kiel, off the north coast. while hubby presents his poster before the DGE (german society for nutritional sciences), jan and i will explore the harbor. hopefully the salty seawind will do his neurodermitis breakout some good. and the maritime museum will surely be a welcome sight for someone born in central germany.

hm, strange, but it sounds like i’m slowly bidding goodbye to germany…

sometimes i take things too seriously. but worse is when i start to take myself too seriously. everybody needs to be able to laugh at himself, at least every now and then. it kinda puts things in a better, lighter perspective when you treat things with humor. sometimes, it can be embarassing, even on the brink of humiliating, but there’s no better therapy than laughing it off. so even as i drown in the deluge of emails when i joined bloggingberks, i never regretted the day. in fact, in blogkadahan, i was almost re-born. or let’s just say that a different angle to me has been brought to light, hahaha! remember this photo here na kung saan-saan pakalat-kalat? well, here’s a different me (warning: R-18, ok?) you’ll find there. watch out, my turn’s tomorrow!

p.s. the second photo is a product of polo’s digital editing.