Lätt Kolsyrad

This is what's waiting for me at the end of each day... now this is what you'd call a bottled water!

This is Sweden!

I called up the Mr. Lobby Guard last night to complain about the heater in my room. Seemed like it was not working coz I couldn't feel the heat despite the fact that I turned it up to it's maximum level. Either that or I just didn't know how to operate the thing (who needs heater in Manila anyway??).

Mr. Lobby Guard went up after awhile and checked my room. His verdict was that the heater was okay (I swear the thing wasn't even warm!!). Then he turned to me and asked, 'Are you cold?'. Thinking that I already got his sympathy, my answer was a shivering 'Yes'. But surprise, surprise his reply was the same reply he gives me every time I comment on the Swedish weather. And this is actually comparable to Leonida's famous This-is-Sparta line in 300:

'Cold? This is not cold, this is normal. This is Sweden!'

Well, thank you Mr Lobby Guard, that was indeed very helpful, it'll certainly keep me from shivering the entire night!

Snaphots of Sweden

Posting the first snapshots that I have taken for the last 3 days... I tried to be artistic but I'll let you be the judge of these =)

aerial view of Stockholm Arlanda

the gates leading to the Old Stockholm

walking through the old town

welcoming spring

Lawson office in Linköping

Linköping's mini Silicon Valley

... and the highlight of my Sunday walk =)

A Glimpse of Stockholm and Linköping

Sweden has the right combination of historic ambiance, contemporary lifestyle, and richness in nature that makes it a beautiful country. This is evident in both Stockholm and Linköping. I haven't really gotten to explore the two cities given our training schedule but my brief glimpse of them certaintly made an impression.

Stockholm, the Swedish capital, has both the old and new town, the transformation of which is subtly evident when you walk through the city gates infront of the Royal Palace. There are no skcyscrapers that dominate the area but the endless body of water and the abundant natural beauty surrounding the archipelago more than made up for this seemingly cosmopolitan disability.

Linköping, on the other hand, is more of a suburban area but it has it's own mini version of the Silicon Valley where some of the major IT businesses hold office (including Lawson and Sony Ericksson). It's vast greenery execudes a relaxed and serene atmostphere that can relieve you of the stress at work (if people ever get stressed here! haha).

I have yet to go around these two cities and hopefully I will have more to say in my next dippings!

KBP On Board!

History repeated itself as I sat at the Manila airport checkin area trying to figure out how to get rid of my almost 7kg of excess baggage without paying 315£ (it's 45£ per excess kg now!!), deducting 6000 points from my worldperks mileage, or sending some stuff back to the condo. Didn't know that the maximum allocated kgs for European travels would still be 20kg for checkin and 10kgs for handcarry luggages (plus 3 kilos additional for the personal bag).

After almost 2 hours of instant repacking(I'm travelling to Sweden with my manager) and repeatedly asking the KLM staff if he was sure about the weight allocation for luggages (hahaha), we were able to get into the pre-departure area still on time but a little bit stressed out.

As I was trying to nap, my manager suddenly nudged me. Apparently he has spotted what he thought was a celebrity getting off the plane because the girl was all dressed-up and she was blindfolded. Alas, my KBP intincts got alerted and true enough, even before I had seen Bianca Gonzales and the ABS CBN crew, I knew it was the PBB housemate swap from Slovenia! Apparently, the airplane that she boarded would be the same airplane for us as well. Within seconds, I was at the glass window trying to get some photos of what KBPs would probably call a historical event in PBB. I guess, I'm more KBP than what I would normally admit! HAHAHAHAHA

Will be posting the pic as soon as I get the USB drive in my laptop working ;)

Note: KBP (kay-bee-pee): Kapisanan ng mga Baduy sa Pilinas

Painting Strawberries

Isay and I tried our hands at ceramic painting last March 17 at Hobbes (Greenbelt 2). It was actually a good way to spend the day... a nice alternative to the usual malling and movie watching that we do during weekends.

Just a quick intro, Hobbes provides an environment that allows you to relax and explore your artistic side. This quaint little shop in Greenbelt 2 sells a wide variety of imported toys and other whimsical items (they even sell fishes in fancy aquariums!) that one cannot normally find in the malls. They also offer scheduled art classes for a more formal introduction to the art world!

If you want a more relaxed artsy afternoon, you may choose to spend it with a warm cup of coffee (or tea), just chatting, browsing through the art books, or trying out the available game boards in the activity area!

Posting the result of my almost 5 hours of artistic attempt (took me that long all because of my stubborn insistence to manually paint the strawberries instead of using the available fruit stamps!)

top view

bottom view (overdid the strawberries here.. which explains the scarcity above..hehe)

The Big Dip Welcome

This photo earned a thousand reactions when i first displayed it in my msn messenger... haha, well, it's my favorite photo from our last Galera outing (thanks to Tebs by the way for taking such great pics hehe) because it perfectly reflects what The Big Dip is all about -- living life... and loving it...

Here's to taking a fun plunge in life!

Welcome to The Big Dip!