land's end

And so, after almost seven years in Europe, I have reached the edge of the continent: Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe.

There is something poignant about setting foot here, something that tugs quietly at my heartstrings, and whispers that yes, perhaps, it is time to move on.

"Aqui, onde a terra se acaba e o mar começa... (Here, where the land ends and the sea begins...)" - Luís de Camões, Os Lusíadas

[Cabo Da Roca-Ponta Mais Ocidental Do Continente Europeu]

capricious

Capri, playground of the rich and famous: where Louis Vuitton does espadrilles and taxis are open-topped convertibles.

(Side story: The taxi driver caught me sneaking a picture of his taxi and joked "Signora, that will be 10€!" To which I promptly replied "No, I'll pay with a smile!" and flashed him my million dollar smile. *applause from the taxi drivers* Bow.)

sometimes, when you randomly get off a bus

On a whim, I decided to get off the bus at Atrani, a small town just around the headland from its more famous neighbor, Amalfi. A whitewashed town nestled at the foot of the hills and a small beach, it was one not given over to tourism. The buildings were old and scarred by the elements, and held the romance of another era.

It was then that I noticed the cables running along the length of the street, the catering cars, and camera lights emblazoned with a Cinetecnica logo -- I had walked right into a movie shoot! (Notice the retro bus and people clad in 40s garb.)

It was the Italy of Cinema Paradiso.

And I was entranced.

[atrani, italy]

the dream drive on the amalfi coast

I munch on a panini as the bus pulls out of Sorrento. I’m still only halfway to my destination, the transfer giving me just enough time to have a quick break at a cafeteria near the station.

The bus starts winding up the hills, on to the neighboring communes of Piano di Sorrento and Sant’Agnello. We pass monstrous blocks of resort hotels, which thankfully thin out to pastel colored houses, lemon groves, and glimpses of villages across the hill. We climb up, and up, and up, twisting and turning, until finally we are high in the clouds and there is nothing but fog and the road in front of us.

Then, because nature has a flair of drama, the curtain of clouds are drawn back. The Amalfi Coast lies sparkling before our eyes. Cliff after cliff of villages, tumbling down into the Mediterranean Sea.

It’s so beautiful I want to weep.

[costiera amalfitana, salerno, italy]

from napoli to sorrento on the circumvesuviana

The train is a rickety metal contraption, perhaps from the 1970s. On it is a mixture of people: tourists with cameras slung around their neck, locals on their daily commute to the next town, workers lugging huge carts loaded with bags of produce. 

Italian is an emotional, expressive language, as proven by the loud chatter that fills the carriage. Across me, a gold-ringed aviator-shaded men sits, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, showcasing his bountiful treasure of thick chest hair. It would be borderline humorous and creepy, if not for the gentle care he gave his son, who seemed to be suffering from a stomachache. He seemed a good father, and that was enough.

A five-year old boy alights at Pompeii, busking for coins with his little accordion. He can barely belt out a tune, but he is so adorable he earns a few coins from the passengers. Then it's a group of buskers that hop on the train, playing a jazzed-up version of the lambada. It incites the very gay group of Italian teeneagers next to me to start gyrating on the train's railings and dancing in the aisles. Their spirit is contagious, and pretty soon everyone is smiling and bopping their head to the beat of the drums.

And then the laundry-festooned buildings give way to the views of Mount Vesuvius, and finally to the sea.

We have reached Sorrento.

in time of daffodils | goodbye, eindhoven

in time of daffodils (who know

the goal of living is to grow)

forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim

the aim of waking is to dream,

remember so (forgetting seem)

in time of roses (who amaze

our now and here with paradise)

forgetting if, remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond

whatever mind may comprehend,

remember seek (forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be

(when time from time shall set us free)

forgetting me, remember me

-e.e. cummings

and so a year in eindhoven has passed.
bittersweet, but still,
i am thankful for the memories.
thank you, eindhoven. remember me.
[genneper parken, eindhoven, the netherlands]

parlez-vous francais?

My colleagues complain that I hardly ever speak in French, apart from "Oui!" and "Non!" and "Je ne comprends pas!"  So today, in an effort to humor them, I walked to my desk and greeted Jean-Pierre in the most bibo voice I could muster:

"Salut! Ca va? Je m'appelle Sheila!" (Hello! How are you? I am Sheila!)

Jean-Pierre stops in his tracks, raises his eyebrows at me, and is already laughing when he replies: "Salut Sheila! D'ou viens tu?" (Hello Sheila! Where are you from?)

Encouraged, I try to crack a joke with my newfound French vocabulary. "Je viens de... how do you say 'heaven' in French?"

"Paradis?"

"Je viens de Paradis!" I exclaim proudly.  What I meant to say, of course, is that I had come down from heaven to grace him with my angelic presence.

Jean-Pierre cracks up. "You just said you died and came back from the dead. Or, it could also mean that you died and went to heaven, but heaven sent you back because they didn't want you."

Fail.

the banana phone

One of my fears, before I began my internship here in France, was that: a) I would be stuck with a bunch of middle-aged employees who talked about their houses, children, and mortgages; or b) be the only girl amidst male nuclear scientists and engineers who liked to discuss theoretical physics in their spare time.

In other words, that I would be bored shitless.

That was until I met my officemates. The conversations we have are so stupid it's hilarious.

Today, Jean-Pierre, the guy who sits across my desk in the office, walked into our room complaining that he had left his mobile phone at home.

ME: Oh? (hands the banana on my desk to him) You can use this instead! (I demonstrate and put the banana to my ear like a phone.)
JEAN-PIERRE: You think that's a phone?!?
ME: Yes, haven't you seen on the internet? (goes to Google and comes back with this picture) See?


JEAN-PIERRE (giving me a strange look): You're crazy.
ME (still searching on Google): Oh, this is even better! See? It's so famous on Google.


JEAN-PIERRE: You know, in France, when we see a banana we don't think of a telephone.
ME (pausing for a moment to register what he's saying): Oh.
JEAN-PIERRE (cracking up now): Yes, you will see! Google "banane" and see what comes up! Come on, try it!
ME: No, I don't want!

At this point Jean-Pierre starts laughing like a madman.

Suddenly we hear a muffled voice coming through the walls. It's Samuel, the guy from the room next door, yelling, JEAAAAN-PIEEEEERRRE! What are you doing to She-la?

JEAN-PIERRE (stops laughing and puts a deadpan face on): He's jealous.

Hahaha. I'm gonna miss these guys when my internship ends.


PS. If you are one of the losers who have never heard of a banana phone, watch this. It's from the pre-YouTube era, one of the most annoyingly LSS-inducing songs ever. ;) Ring ring ring ring banana phoooooone....

happy holidays from tilburg

This time of year the church bells ring
And carolers on corners, sing
Of gifts of love and peace and cheer
And a happy, prosperous New Year.

As Christmas Day ends, I wanted to send you my warmest wishes from Tilburg -- I wish that the feeling of love, peace, and joy that envelops this season remain with you throughout the new year.

As for me, I spent the past two days visiting the Christmas Markets in Cologne, Germany, where I stuffed myself silly trying all the local dishes: wurst grilled over charcoal, reibekuchen (potato cakes) served with applesauce, dampfnudels topped with vanilla sauce and berries, mugs of glühwein (mulled red wine), leberkäse served a fried egg and potatoes, schweinshaxe (pork knuckles) with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes, glasses of Kölsch (a local beer brewed in Cologne), and a lot of other dishes whose names I can't even recall. I think I gained ten pounds in two days! :) On Christmas Eve, I had a lovely dinner with friends in a little restaurant on the banks of the Rhine and capped it with a midnight mass at the Kölner Dom.

Now, I'm having myself a merry little white Christmas here in Tilburg, The Netherlands, where I'm doing a semester of my masters programme. (The picture above is one I took of Heuvelstraat, Tilburg’s main shopping street.) It's my first Christmas away from family, but I have discovered it is possible to be miles away from home and yet still feel the warmth of home. I feel truly thankful that I am blessed and loved. :)

Thanks for being a part of my 2009, and all the best in 2010!

in the wee small hours of the morning

It's two in the morning, and here I am writing in a small room in the south of the Netherlands.

It feels strange to write that. I live in the Netherlands. Sometimes I feel like I have to pinch myself just to make sure that this -- the past one and a half year -- is not a dream.

My third semester here in Europe has almost come and gone. In a month, I will be packing up my things again for my next destination -- time to wrap up everything I've learned, do an internship, write a thesis, and get that Masters degree under my belt. Where do I go next? I don't know. I guess I should worry, but right now, none of that matters.

I just know I am thankful.

My journey across Europe -- fifteen months, three countries -- has been a whirlwind of new faces, places, and discoveries. I am thankful that throughout this journey, I have had my friends and family by my side, and a multitude of strength from God to surpass any difficulties. I am thankful to have been given the abundance of blessings to have lived the life I have lived until now.

I am truly lucky and blessed.

There is much more to come, but I already know my life has been a complete and utter success.

No regrets.

goodbye

in my dreams i'm dying all the time
as i wake its kaleidoscopic mind
i never meant to hurt you
i never meant to lie
so this is goodbye
this is goodbye.
-porcelain, moby


3am at firenze's stazione di santa maria novella
[florence, italy]

be here now

don't let your soul get lonely, child
it's only time, it will go by
don't look for love in faces, places
it's in you, that's where you'll find kindness
-be here now, ray lamontagne


i turned 27 today.
[stockholm, sweden]

how to eat in finland

When I first arrived in Finland, I found the food appalling.

Meals tasted like they had come from mass-production lines. Fruits and vegetables tasted like cardboard. Fresh meat was nowhere to be found in supermarkets -- everything was either cured, processed, marinated, or ground into mystery meat and resurrected as cold cuts and sausages.

My initial theory was that Finland, being on the edge of the earth, was so far away that fruits, vegetables, and meats aged and died before they could finish their journey to Finland. And, once they get here, they are cryogenically frozen by the Finnish weather.

The secret was to eat like a local.

Having come Aix-en-Provence and its lovely Mediterranean climate, I was expecting the fruits and vegetables I had in France to taste the same in Finland. That, of course, was a stupid assumption.

I have since learned to buy only produce in season at the kauppatori, and have grown fond of some local favorites, like Aura blue cheese (named after the River Aura in Turku), Fazer chocolates, and the wide array of Finnish breads. Finnish bread, in contrast to the crusty & airy ones sold in France, are hearty and grainy, perhaps to help keep you warm in the harsh Finnish climate. Hardly a day passes now that I don't have some bread -- whether its crumbly blue cheese on warm monivilja viipaleet (a soft, chewy multigrained bread) for breakfast; a generous layer of onions, peppers, lettuce, and roast pork on a ruispalat (a coarse, dark rye bread); or large chunks of sunflower seed bread slathered with butter from our bread station at the school cafeteria.

I still have to get used to salmiakki and lakritsi, though. :)

encore provence

"Memory is a notoriously biased and sentimental editor, selecting what it wants to keep
and invariably making a few cosmetic changes to past events. With rose-coloured hindsight,
the good times become magical; the bad times fade and eventually disappear,
leaving only a seductive blur of sunlit days and the laughter of friends."
- Encore Provence, Peter Mayle

Was it real?

Sometimes I have to ask myself that, when I think of the time I spent in Provence.

I look at photographs I have, and I am hit by a staggering realization of how beautiful it was. I cannot believe that I lived there -- walked those weathered streets, laughed, loved, cried there.

Provence feeds the soul. It's like one of those melodies that haunt you -- even when you think you have forgotten about it, it creeps up on you and surprises you with a memory so vivid, so potent, that it feels like an oddly enchanting dream.

And the memory keeps playing again and again, forward, in reverse, in mometary pauses, until it overwhelms everything else and only the music remains.

you don't bring me flowers

you don't say you need me
you don't sing me love songs
you don't bring me flowers anymore





[turku, finland]

a break from studying

gingerbread cookies, anyone?

the house that second-hand shops built

Today, I placed the finishing touch on my room - a 5-euro rug I bought from UFF.

It's hard decorating your room when you're on a student budget, especially when you know you'll be moving out in four months. Luckily, the Finnish -- never one to let anything go to waste -- have it all figured out. For roughly a hundred euros, I was able to deck out my room quite comfortably, with rentals from TYS and the Student Union (some furniture + a starting package of curtains, a duvet, a pillow, & some kitchenware), things scrounged from second-hand shops (a mattress, a rug & a drying line) and an assortment of items from the dirt-cheap IKEA. (A full-sized pillow for 95 cents? Outrageous!) Probably the most expensive thing I bought was a new heater, and that was only after I shivered in my room for a week and finally decided I couldn't wait until a heater turned up at the second-hand store. Hehe. Leave it to me to splurge on shoes but scrimp on things like that.

I live in a student housing complex in Halinen called Haliskylä, where I share a three-bedroom apartment with Johanna, a Swedish-speaking Finn, and Katri from Estonia. Student housing in Finland is excellent, a far cry from the French nightmare called Residence de Cuques. Everything is convenient and well-planned -- the Halinen landscape is almost rural with a forest and Halistenkoski rapids nearby, yet there is a commercial complex across the street and school is a 10-minute bus ride away.

glugging some glögi

It's Valentine's Day tomorrow, and here I am sipping a giant cup of warm glögi.

Glögi (also called glögg or gløgg in other Nordic languages) is a mulled wine that's normally served during the holiday season here in Scandinavia. It's made from spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, sugar or molasses, and mixed with red wine, vodka or brandy. It's then heated and served warm with raisins, almond slivers, and gingerbread cookies. Now, imagine yourself sipping that cup in front of a fireplace in the winter wonderland called Finland...

I know Christmas is two months gone, but Valentines is a holiday too, no? It's red, so glögi still counts as part of my Valentines Day celebrations. Besides, being a poor student like me, now is the perfect time to get addicted to glögi because supermarkets are selling off their remaining stocks for one euro! (Thanks to my "official" Finnish friend, Annika, for the tip!)

Happy Valentines Day to you all, wherever in the world you may be!

manilla

It's not every day that something reminds me of home. So when something, no matter how small, comes to me, I grasp at it.

I am thankful that even here, halfway around the world, I know there is still a place called home.





the old manilla factory,
which is now a center for arts and culture
[turku, finland]

did you know...

...that there's a walk of fame somewhere in turku?



it's buried under the snow most of the time, but it's there, somewhere along linnankatu.
(thanks to ansku for pointing them out to me!)