Day 4 - 17/11 - Venice to Rome

Hey Everyone!

Today I woke up to a beautiful venician morning! Our hotel's check out time was at 11am, so Dickson and I decided we'd try to see a few things before then.

We went out to try and find some breakfast. We took a while to find a place that we wanted to eat in, but when we finally found the place it was guuuuud!

Afterwards we decided we'd head to see some of the sites across one of the canals. Earlier in the little cafe we'd eaten at, I'd given into temptation and bought waaaaaay too much food! (This tends to happen alot). The specific food item I'm referring to was a chocolate looking donut thing. It turned out the donut was actually biscotti, alot harder then I was expecting. It also turned out that I had eaten waaay too much so was no longer hungry. So I ended up carrying the donut around for the rest of my my time in Venice.

Here is a photo of my on a bridge...with the donut!

While on the bridge I fed part of my donut to some pigeons. It's pretty cool, because no matter where you are in the city, when you throw some food on the floor, pigeons appear out of nowhere!

While I was bonding with the pigeons. Dickson was having a little bit of drama. Dickson is pretty paranoid, and so he swore that this one guy on the bridge had been stalking us. We referred to him as scary purple guy! While taking the above photo of me, he was whispering random italian phrases at Dickson. Needless to say we walked away pretty quickly.

On our way to the next attraction we passed through St Mark's Square again. I decided to ditch the rest of my biscotti donut and reconnect with my pigeon friends.

Afterwards we caught a watertaxi across Canale di San marco to Sante Maria Della Salute.

This was another great church, filled with alot of intricate art.

Afterwards we decided it was best to head back to the hotel and check out. Between the church and our hotel we were intercepted by this really really weird guy.

He was a watercolor painter and I think he was trying to sell us his pictures. He told us he was a university lecturer, and how difficult it is to paint well with watercolor. Then he proceeded to tell us that "oriental people" like Dickson never buy his pictures because they are never able to open their eyes and see how great his work is. After this he then began to close his eyes and imitate an asian person. Needless to say we were both like "What the fuck?". Dickson wanted to walk away at that point, but I was actually quite interested in how crazy this guy was. So I stood there for another minute or so, he gave me a stack of his pictures, and when I looked at them, he started saying stuff about how I look at his pictures like they were postcards, and how that is insulting. But he kept talking to us, after another minute or so pretending to be interested in how great his work was I said "Yeah thanks for your time but we have to go now." As soon as I said this, he was like "Fine Go! Go! GO! GO! GO!!"

Mildly Dramatic, but we went! Went! WENT! WENT! WENT!! Back to our hotel and immediately packed our belongings.

We then went to the Ferrovia Sante Lucia train station and verified our Eurail passes for two months. This means that we can hop onto some of the major trains.

We used the pass to hop onto a train to Rome, and after 6 hours on a train, we arrived in Rome! Woohoo!!-We then after standing in the rain for 10 minutes, we hopped onto a taxi and headed to our hotel Domina Cassia.

I was asleep on the Taxi, but apparently the Italians are crazy drivers!

I'll keep you guys informed!

BBB

Day 3 - 16/11 - London to Venice

Hey Everyone!!

Here is the next update in my european blog series =)

Our hotel in London had a shuttle which left to the airport at 5am, so Dickson and I made sure that we had would wake up with enough time to head there. I woke up naturally at 3am because I was still jetlagged, had a nice relaxing time stuffing clothes into my suitcase, while Dickson woke up an hour or so later. Things got a bit frantic because I wanted to update my blog before we left in the morning detailing our London adventures, and I only managed to finish doing this at around 4:58am =p The driver even came and knocked on our door to harass us! The things I go through to update this blog I tell ya... =p

We went to the airport and checked in with easyJet, it's the first time I'd ever caught a budget airline, so needless to say I was very excited =p We started to head into the departures area, but first had to pass through the dreaded metal detectors.

Dickson has these pockets sewed into his undershirt where he puts all his valuables, so when he set off the beeper they basically made him strip while they patted him down and checked every ... single ... pocket for anything sharp. While watching them pat Dickson I tried my best to remove every piece of metal from my person except the zipper on my pants ... and I STILL set off the friggin thing! I recieved a large amount of groping, and he even said please before asking me to spread my legs!

We got onto the plane and had some brilliant views while flying from London to Venice! Woohooo Italy!! I've always always wanted to go there!!

We arrived at the airport, and after immigration gave me a bit of a hard time. We found out that you had to pay 1 Euro to get a trolley. Damnit! We've just come from UK where it's all pounds, so how the hell am I supposed to have a 1 Euro coin!

Just at that time Dickson's suitcase (Suitcase not backpack!) breaks! The handle won't pull out, which means he has to bend over while walking to drag it! I was too lazy to pull out the straps of my backpack at the moment, so I thought I would just carry it like I would my laptop bag =p Needless to say after about 2 minutes, I went to a shop, bought a packet of M&Ms, paid with a 50 Euro bill, and got some 1 Euro coins for a trolley =p

We then hopped onto one of these water taxis, and after about an hour reached Venice Island

We would have to walk to our hotel, and since there were no trolleys around I decided it would be a good time to finally get out the straps and load the bag up onto my back. Here are some photos of me just after the water taxi arrived on shore.

See I'm not struggling!

... 15 seconds later =p

Our hotel was located about 100 metres from St Mark's Square, but it was still a mission to find since it was somewhere around the backstreets. When we finally found the Hotel Ai Do Mori, we had to climb up three sets of stairs to get to the reception (poor Dickson really struggled with his suitcase). Finally after reaching the top of the stairs, the lady with an Italian accent is like "Ohhh! You boughta your luggage up! You're notta stay'n in thisa buildin! You're in the next one!" We said Gratzi, took our keys, and our bags down three flights of stairs, through some of Venice's streets, and up a few more stairs, till we finally arrived at hour room!

It was a really beautiful room! As soon as I arrived, I threw my pack on the floor and fell onto the bed ...

Ahhhhhhh! That felt guuuuud!

We then left the hotel and looked around Venice a little. It's so amazing here! Everything is so well preserved, so you will have these amazing modern shops like Gucci, Prada, hey even McDonald's located in the original style buildings.

After that we went into St Mark's square where I had many friends waiting!

I bought a croissant for the sole reason of rounding up a flock for that photo! Although you can't see it so well there are pigeons all over me! At one stage they were on my head too. I can almost hear my parent's screaming "Put those pigeons down!! Bird Flu!! Bird Flu!!"

I made sure none of the Bird's sneezed on me =p

We then went inside St Mark's Basilika and Doges Palace. They are both honestly amazing! So much beautiful artwork is contained inside these buildings. The Basilika has this one room filled with treasure, one of the items was an egyptian urn from 465BC! Was amazing. Doges Palace was incredible as well, I was going around taking photos of some of the paintings, when one of the guards started telling me off =p here is an example of some of the artwork found on the ceilings.

Afterwards we walked along the waterfront in an attempt to find a cafe/bar/restraunt that serves food, but that didn't charge tourist prices. We couldn't find anything that fit both criteria, however there were some nice views!

We eventually found a really nice little cafe/bar. I had my first slice of pizza in Italy! Wooohoo!! The atmosphere was pretty interesting. It seemed like all the italian staff were having a party, laughing, joking and shouting to each other. Occasionally it occured to them, "Oh yeah we have customers" and they'd see whether we needed anything =p I don't know if it was just this one place, or whether it's Italian culture. I'll keep you informed!

Afterwards we did a little bit more window browsing, and headed in the general direction of the Accademia. It's this art gallery in Venice that has quite a few pieces in it.

Venice is in the middle of some sort of Vivaldi festival, and so all these churches are having special exhibitions/events that you can visit. Lots of beautiful classical music is playing, and there are some little museums of stuff like Violins. I'm not too into that, but Dickson, who's been playing classical music since he was young was interested in some of the sites.

While heading to Accademia, we had to walk over this bridge. As I looked around I was like "OMG!! This has been in movies!"

Dickson "Ohhh Yeah! That's right! What movie was it again?"

Me "I know! I know! It was one with Mandy Moore, when she was the president's daughter!"

Dickson "..."

Me "She travelled Europe lots!"

Dickson "..."

Me "Her bodyguards had a nice romantic scene here!"

Dickson "..."

Me "Yeah, I don't watch movies with lame crossover female pop singers either!" *Innocently whistles the "Crossroad" themesong while slowly walking away*

Anyway here is the view!

Accademia was really cool as well. But you had to be a real art nut to completley enjoy the exhibits. I'd say things like "Oh that's pretty!" rather than discussing something intellectual like the implication this piece had on society during it's time.

Then I went back to my room, and while I was supposed to be getting ready for dinner, I kindof fell asleep =p-Oh well =p Another day another adventure! I'm slowly getting used to the time zone!

Next stop is ROME!! I'll be there for a few days and I'll keep ya updated!

BBB

Day 2 - 15/11 - London!

Hey Everyone!

After I wrote the previous post, I waited abit longer for my friend Dickson to arrive =) It had taken him like an hour and a half to get to the hotel in Gatwick from Heathrow because of rush hour traffic.

Afterwards we went into a bigger room, and decided to go into the city to meet some of Dickson's friends from Auckland.

We met them in Oxford Circus, it's a really popular shopping district in London with some really nice buildings. All these modern shops are in old style buildings, it looked really awesome. I was running around going "Oooh! old buildings! old buildings! I want photos in front of old buildings!" Good way to make a first impression with Dickson's friends.

We went to lunch at this place called Burger Shack. Sounds classy I know! But was actually quite good. Had nice food! Here's a pic of all of us at the Burger Shack.

We spent a good ten minutes trying to subtly gain the attention of the waitresses to take the photo, before finally I ended up jumping up and down with my hand up in the air =p

We then went back out into Oxford and cruised around a few shops! While doing this I managed to fulfill my dream of taking photos in front of old buildings!

It was a really nice preserved district. I can understand now what councils have in mind when they class areas of city as heritage.

We then hopped onto the underground ...

... Yes we don't look like tourists and headed off to see some of the sites in London.

As we walked towards the millennium Wheel thing, we walked past this massive IMAX. I was like "Wow is that the London Eye?!" Everyone else was laughed and was like "I can't tell if he's serious or not!"See there are advantages to being a jackass!

We decided we'd hop onto the wheel and go for a round. As we were walking up to it Big Ben came into view, so there was more little indian boy screeching as I pointed towards the building.

After taking many a photo in front of Big Ben (remember I was with 3 other asian tourists and I basically count as two!) We got on one of the carriages. We had a whole to ourselves, so the five of us were running around acting like idiots =p I managed to get my goofy asian pose in front of the big Ben! You can see it in the background!

While we were in the carriage a nice electronic voice came over the speakers giving us informative facts! Apparently I was standing in the "World's Largest observation wheel!" Wow that is impressive right! Something to tell the family!

I also notice that there is a real problem being Indian when it turns night time. Because you either get photos that are like this ...

or like this ...

Of course since it's all about me I prefer the first photo! Who cares that I'm in London!! =p
We then head off out into the city to find some dinner before heading back to Gatwick. I decided I'd take another photo with the Big Ben, because afterall, it's the Big Ben!! Any building that has pies named after it has to be good!

Look how dark it is, even though the clock says 5:20pm! Crazy winter hours =p

We went to dinner at some Italian place, all of us New Zealanders struggled to remain conciousness due to jetlag. I swear my head nearly hit the table a couple of times!!

Anyway we got back to the hotel in one piece, and guess where we're heading tomorrow at 6am?

VENICE!!!
I'll keep you updated!!

BBB

Day 1 - Look at me! Look at me! I'm in Europe!

I'm excited!! Finally out of New Zealand, out of Uni, out of exams and onto my two month crawl across this continent!

It all started at the beginning of this year when uni was about to start. I was hanging out with one of my old friends Dickson and we were talking about what we'd done over the past summer holiday and what we were thinking of doing at the end of 2005. I think he mentioned something about doing nothing and I said something like "Let's just go do Europe!"

From there it evolved until finally we reached Sunday 13th November 2005.

I was running around like a headless chicken because I'd fell asleep the night before without doing half of the stuff I'd wanted to do. Mainly that little thing called packing =p

My parents wanted me to take a suitcase through Europe. I told them, "No, No, No! I need to take a backpack!"
They were like "But a suitcase has wheels! You aren't strong enough to carry a bag!"
Ok so that may have been true, but I had to act outraged in defense of my fragile self esteem! "Noooooo! Neeeeeed a backpack!! We can just use my old one!"

When I refer to the "old one" I refer to the pack I used when I was in scouts ... which was when I was 12 years old in Primary School.

So Mum finds it, gives me a call and says "David. You know how the last time you were at camp you did a lot of walking?"
I was like "Mum! That was something like 8 years ago, how am I supposed to remember?"
Mum "Well, because it is still covered in mud ... It also has cat hair on it!"

As excited as I was about the prospect of traveling around Europe with a bag covered in 8 year old mud and cat hair from our pet whom is really satan's spawn, I decided that it was best to head down into Katmandu to buy a backpack! They had this cool deal going on where you join their summit club and you get 50% off your purchase! So my bag ended up costing like $250 instead of $500 =p

Fastforward an hour or so and Mum can't fit my mammoth beast sleeping bag into my backpack, so ends up I need to go buy another one! (another sleeping bag that is!)
Turns out there is another Katmandu in Newmarket, so I went there and was like "Yeeeeeeah, I'm not already a member of your summit club ... Yeeeeeeah"

So got my sleeping bag for half price too! Woohoo!

I finally managed to get myself to the airport a few hours later. Said goodbye to my parents (turns out I have never left them for two months before, so they were very sad ... at least they were in front of me =p). Arrived at the gate and hopped onto the plane. While at the gate I decided that I would take a photo at every airport I stopped off on the way to London (which was Auckland - Melbourne - Dubai - London) showing the progression of my sleepy state as I went through 20 hours of flying!

Here is the starting photo in Auckland.


Unfortunately I didn't end up doing this for two reasons. Firstly, apparently I have shame. So while getting ready to pose in front of this poster with all these cute Kioalas in Melbourne, I noticed a gate full of Japanese passengers staring at me. Needless to say I did what any rational human being would in the situation ... I pretended I was yawning with a camera in my hand, and slowly backed away. Secondly it turns out that my flight wasn't 20 hours, it was 30 hours! So I was too tired to care after being shoved around in four countries, sitting next to people who took my armrest or who needed to go to the bathroom too many times! People suck!

Here is a photo of Dubai:

This photo doesn't make it look cool, but on the way in they showed us this cool video of Dubai. I almost wanted to cancel my Europe trip and hang out there for two months! I'm seriously thinking of extending my trip a few more days to explore Dubai while heading back to Auckland! But I have a while to think about that anyway, by that time I may be dieing to get back home =)

I'm writing this post from a hotel near the Gatwick airport in London! I'm just waiting for my friend Dickson to arrive before heading off into the city to take some nice tourist photos!
Expect to see photos of me doing asian tourist poses infront of Big Ben in the not so distant future!

**Quick Update**

My computer ran out of batteries while typing the post above so I had to leave the hotel lobby and return to my room. While doing that I passed a window and realized it was raining!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Anyway!

Cya guys! Miss ya all ... OK so it's only been a few days, in a month or so this will be more believable!

BBB

Europe Countdown - 4 Days!

4 More Days till I'm on a plane ... 3 more episodes of the Apprentice I HAVE to watch ... 2 More exams ... 1 suitcase to pack ... and an infinite amount of loose ends to tie up ...

Not sure if it can be done! But damnit I'm going to try!

BBB

Before and After Braces

I was at one of my friend's birthday party the other day, and when I was there he gave me some photos of when we traveled around Hong Kong, China and Japan together. We did this back in December of 2002 straight after high school.

As I looked through those photos I saw alot of evidence of how I was quite a bit ... heavier back in those days =p Once I joined Uni, the ample supply of sushi and walking meant that I gradually lost weight without thinking about it too much.

I remember the other day we were eating at this Korean place, and as I usually do, I ate ate and ate till there was nothing around me, sat back, patted my belly and went "oooohhhhhh man I feel sick!" apparently I do this alot =p But when I did this James said "The thing that's annoying is that David can eat all that without putting anything on!"

Well so this post is to prove that I can and have at one stage in my life put "it" on hehe!! I was at my orthodontist appointment the other day and they give you these photos of how you are before and after you've had your orthodontic treatment.

Anyway so here are the comparative photos showing how I was at the start of 2003 and how I am now 2 and a half years later!


It's nice to see my signature nose hasn't shrunk =p

Here is a comparison pic of how I looked in Japan right after high school (end of 2002), and me just a few months ago in India.

So as you can see there has been a slight change =p I'll try to live a healthier lifestyle in the future ... OK so I'm eating a doughnut right now, I'll be healthy after exams damnit! I need comfort food!

BBB

Donald Trump's Blog

OMG!! Donald Trump has a blog! =p Great reading while procrastinating!

Click here

I highly doubt he actually wrote these posts, but still some fun reading hehe.

The best part is not the actual posts, but the comments! People are sucking up big time hehe. Here is a link to an article about Trump's blog giving a nice summary of some of the biggest kiss ass comments online!


BBB

James' Birthday (I spelt it right this time! yay!)

Yesterday was the birthday of our lovable keyboard carrying James! Since this could potentially be the last birthday he spends as a university student, a special bunch of people decided organize something memorable for him (who cares if he has an exam the next morning!)

Unfortunately this special bunch of people were so secret in nature, that not only did identity remain hidden from James, even they didn't know who they were, which resulted in alot of logistical programs =p I won't go into the whole story, since my blog is already long enough, but basically we were running around clueless for a few hours attempting to make this a unforgettable night for Papa Rowlands!

In the end we managed to serenade James with Happy Birthday in Lvl 0 of the info commons. We did disrupt the study patterns of all the hard working people in the room, but luckily they broke out into spontaneous applause after we'd finished! Even better we made James turn a new shade of red (maybe induct him into the tomato club =p).

We ended the night in Denny's (classy I know! But the birthday boy gets a free meal!)

Half of dinner was spent entertaining James about how much trouble we'd gotten ourselves into while getting everything sorted out, the other half we spent whining about how far away East Auckland was from the mainland! But luckily an advantage of being out West was that we got to see our lovely Whiter! Unfortunately it also meant that we had to put up with Susan though =(

During the party I managed to get another Benetton moment to add to my collection!

Happy Birthday Papa Rowlands! Lets hope none of your potential employers do a google search to find this page =p Otherwise you ain't gett'n hired anytime soon when they find out how wacky some of your friends are!

BBB

The office is a place of productivity!

That's right everyone! The AIESEC office is a place where nothing but work should be done! It is a serious place!

Let this post be used as a case study for anyone who decides to break this office rule and attempt to initiate counterproductive behavior!

This is Susan ...


She was relaxing in the office, singing, making alot of squealing high pitched noises which disrupted the migration patterns of nearby dolphins.

This type of behavior is unacceptable in the office. Because of her blatant disregard for the rules she attracted the attention of the office law enforcer ... that's right ... she got on the bad side of AIESEC office bunny, the fiercest creature in all the old choral hall land.


Needless to say Susan was punished, and she learnt never ever to break these rules, or feel the wrath of the office bunny.


May this be a lesson to all of you ...

BBB

My brother vs the arranged marriage!

So as some of you may/may not know. I have an older brother (John) who's 25 now studying medicine in Ireland.

John's the one on the right =p He's mad that I'm my parent's favorite! Cause I don't drink, smoke or party! .... Anyway ....

Now in India, 25 is coming to that age when you're supposed to be thinking about marriage if you don't already have two children running around your ankles.

Because my brother (who is now single) isn't really Indian, my parents took it upon themselves to do that sort of thinking for him. Our cousins who are in India (all 200 hundred of them) had been put into action to look out for a good Indian, Christian girl, who's an engineer, doctor or lawyer, who's really pretty, fair, and has a rich family (We aren't picky!). The other day one of my relatives called my parents to tell them that they'd found a girl for John!

She was an engineer, had an MBA, was one month younger than John and lived/studied in the UK! Her parents also used to go to Med School with my Dad.

This sent my parents into a frenzy. Seriously all they could do was talk about this chick for days. Luckily I could use the excuse "I have to study" to get away from them hehe. I swear they were already planning out the flower decorations for their engagement party and they hadn't even met the chick yet. They kept trying to recruit me to convince my brother to go for this girl and I was like "Ummmm. No."

So finally the other day they sent us the photos of the chick. Here she is (I'm hoping there are very slim chances she'll ever find this page, and am hoping that HD in the UK has never met her hehe)

So she's not too bad looking. Anyway after sending the pictures to my brother he decides that. No he's not really interested. He can get better looking chicks back in Ireland.

So now my parents are in some sort of mini depression. Because not only is their son not getting married and pumping out grandchildren, but their choice for him was REJECTED! My brother didn't do the rejecting in the nicest way either hehe

After that I told my parents, I do NOT want them to ever find me someone! No No No No NO! =p My Mum was like "Well, this girl has a younger sister, so we were planning to tell them that anyway who cares about the older son, we have a really good younger one who's single and available."

I screamed "No!" a few times at random intervals, but I'm fully expecting to arrive at the UK airport at the start of my Europe trip and "coincidently" bump into a younger version of the chick in the photo =(

Stupid arranged marriages and the evil Indian parents behind them...

BBB

Jules's Birthday (Or is it Jules' Birthday?)

Hey Everyone!

This is a quick update on what I was doing a few weekends ago! So when I'm old and grey looking back through this blog I can go "Ohhh yeah, that's right, I did that!"

I've been spamming Dawson alot lately because he keeps sending me funny photos which I always feel the need to reply to =p Anyway he told me to keep Saturday 22nd of October free for Jules's Birthday party, and that alot of old faces from my past would be there!

I was all excited. Turned up at the party and had a blast catching up with all the alumni =)


It's kindof scary to think that Ying and I are the only people from the 2003 Auckland recruitment batch. Everyone in this photo except Amy's boyfriend used to be in AIESEC and all of them except Sum, Neetha and I think Xue, were recruited with me in 2003.

Ugh, If I'm still around next year I'll be the only one ...

I still have fond memories of my first LTS (Orientation Day) where we were put in groups according to our star signs (mean that Dawson was in my group since he is another person born in January). We were the Virgos and Capricorns, and decided to call ourselves "VirCaps!" (That's what happens when you try and get fresh newbies to get involved in team activities!). Our task was to create a roll call, and our roll call involved this tall girl with really long blonde hair, riding Dawson like a horse (or should I say like a goat!) She was supposed to be a Virgin (Virgo) and he was supposed to be some sort of quadruped/goat (Capricorn)....

Ahhh memories!!

Another cool thing is that Dawson and Jules are still going strong as an item (hopefully he isn't embarrassed if reading this =p) . They were both co-ordinators together for Corporate Breakfast 2004, and it's so cute to see them together. Don't believe me! Here's a photo!


I know! Ohhhhhhhhh! So cute together!!

Anyway! Was great fun seeing where everyone is at in their lives at the moment! I need to have some sort of party when I get back from Europe to get back in touch with everyone =)

BBB