Nga H

Entry for 12 Aug (Summer holiday), Zevaco village, Ajaccio, Corsica

Booking a hostel merely 2 weeks away from our holiday in peak season brought us to desperate measures. We booked the only hostel left available in Ajaccio not caring about its exact location. Well, we suffered the pain later. The hostel was 1.5hrs drive from the city centre. After twists and turns every 50-100m on the road through mountains, we arrived at the 6th village on the route, where we would be staying for 2 nights. So much hassle to go back to the city (one bus per day at 7am? You must be kidding me!) so we decided to take it slow and explore the mountainous villages the next day. A change in landscape anyway..

The next morning, we woke up around 8, taking a shower then having breakfast slowly on the porch of the hostel overlooking the mountains. The owner, in his broken English, gave us instructions of walking 5km to the next village where they have "hot water.. good for bone pains". Ah yes, hot spring :) Sounds good to me.. So off we went.. However, just 500m on the road, an old and charming lady stopped her car in the middle of the road to tell us, "no walking.. Lots of pigs.. Very dangerous!" We had been told earlier of the wild boars with long curvy tusk around the area but they are supposed in the deep forest, not walking freely on the road! Anyway, who are we to neglect the advice of a local? Well, walk back to the hostel then.. We decided to sit on the porch (again!) and read books. What else can we do when it takes only 15m to explore the village of merely 20 roofs including a church and a post office? So there we were on the porch, feet on the opposite chairs, "munching" Murakami's, gazing at the mountains from time to time.. My baby seemed to be "itchy" :d (he's more of a city boy, more eager to walk here and there seeing things). I was perfectly fine, yet pondering how we would get over the day.. Murakami's line read, "Killing time is not an easy job" (in Dance, Dance, Dance). Yeah, right.. Tell me about it!

Anyhow, we continued until 12 and headed for lunch in the only restaurant in the village. We thought nobody but us would be eating there.. It turned out almost full with a bunch of Frenchie tourists right out of a big bus. We managed to get a small table and enjoyed a 3-hr lunch with 5 dishes! Everyone else was doing the same. Afterward we felt so sluggish that a nap seemed just perfect! A conversation over paying the bill got us new info, however. The waitress was laughing hard when we told her about the warning of wild boars. She said only pink pigs on the road! Mama mia! We lost the whole morning already! Good that she offered us a lift to the village with hot springs, which was 8km away (not 5!).

More than happy we took the ride and caught ourselves spending almost 3hrs in that village. Next to the hot spring tub, which was often full of people, was a wide stream full of big rocks. We ended up spending most of our time sitting on the rocks reading books, writing blogs and sketching.. All we could hear was the sound of water caressing the rocks. Uneventful but totally enjoyable.. A couple of hours later while dipping our legs in the hot tub (around 43 degrees) we caught a familiar face standing not so far away.. He was the brother of our hostel owner. He actually went to the same village to buy some stocks and the hostel owner told him that we were there. So this guy was looking for us to give us a lift back! So kind of them! So lucky of us! An 8km walk was replaced by a 6min drive! Not bad when the sun was going down and the road was uphill..

When we were back at the hostel, the owner offered us two beers. "In my invitation", he said. So we were again sitting at the deck, drinking Pietra (Corsican chestnut beer.. Yummy!!) watching the sunset and waiting for our dinner..

In Murakami's, after all, it seems his main character was not killing time. He was waiting.. What about us? What are we waiting for? For a ride to the next destination, I guess :) Whereabout is that destination, I'm not sure and probably don't care much, either.. Just enjoy the ride!

Post anh cai da.. Thi xong se viet blog.. Lau lam roi thay moc meo het ca :(

It's daylight saving tonight.. I gain one more hour.. That means one hour extra for sleep.. That means 6 instead of 5 hours different from home.. That means swift Autumn has come to an end.. That means..

And I cannot let my favorite Autumn pass by just like that :)

This morning during our weekend breakfast (at noon as usual), I kept staring out of the window..

Baby: a penny for your thoughts.. Are you spying on our neighbor?
Myself: nope, I'm spying on the leaves

.. red yellow leaves.. thousands of them lying on the street.. on the pavement.. on top of cars.. beneath every step we take..

Tonight in our late dinner (as usual, again!), I glanced out of the window and caught this surreal scene..

Myself: Baby, look out.. Something's going on.. It's like fire falling down the street..

Then we both realized it was just the wind sweeping last autumn leaves by the yellow-lit street lamppost.. I must have associated it with some scene in the horror "Silent hill" or a little 'hang-over' from "District 9" tonight??? Yet my heart did beat a little faster :)

Anyhow..

Entry for April 17, 2009 (Keukenhof)

We keep this list of places that we will visit once then cross out and probably won't ever get back. Keukenhof is one among those. It's a flower garden which is seen as the most popular photo-taking spot in the world. When my family first moved in our house in Hanoi, my dad decided to hang on the wall this huge poster of a tulip garden in the living room to enable some sort of "illusion" (i.e. making the room bigger). By then I never had this wish or thought that I would actually step in that garden one day.

Anyway, once in Netherlands, tulip is everywhere, which turns Keukenhof to nothing other than a "been there, done that". Well, at least we managed to "be there, do that". I must say one of my reason for getting there was to spy on people.. making all those stolen shots of people embracing the (rare) bright spring sun and cherishing the beauty that doesn't really last long.. I failed though.. Too many people.. too dense flowerbeds.. everyone posing for photo shooting..

Nevertheless, I managed to spy on these 2 lovers who gave me no complaint no matter how much I was interrupting their "business" :D

There will be more days like that cold winter morning when I was half awake on the tram to the central station.. like a zombie.. to my 1-hour train to work..

There will be more days like that Wednesday afternoon when I left behind my going-no-where work.. trying to elbow myself into the crowded metro to the Dutch class.. with the only thought that I would definitely skip the next one..

There will be more days like that Monday when no matter how much time I spent in the shower, I just couldn't wake up.. asking myself why weekend is always so short..


BUT..


On that same cold winter morning, on the tram ride I saw flowers blossom everywhere along the road.. embracing the early spring sunshine..

On that same Wednesday, waiting for my late train home, I saw the brilliant sunset over Ajax Amsterdam stadium.. I heard the football fans shouting.. singing.. I know I won’t skip the next week’s class..

And after Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu & Fri will come weekend again! Everyone should work toward a clear goal. I do have one clear goal indeed: My forever-short weekends..

Have a nice weekend, my friends!

Entry for January 11, 2009

Đi làm thì nói tiếng Anh.. nghe tiếng Hà Lan.. Về nhà tiếng Anh nốt.. Nhiều lúc thấy mình diễn đạt bằng tiếng Anh dễ hơn tiếng Việt => what a shame!.. Thỉnh thoảng cho 1 entry tiếng Việt cho đỡ quên.. cho đỡ nhớ..

Có 2 đứa dở hơi 1 ngày đông lạnh lẽo lôi kéo nhau vác máy ảnh với tri-pod ra bãi biển hì hụi chụp ảnh Light Art Exhibition.. Lại còn căn ke giờ lúc hoàng hôn.. Khốn nỗi mùa đông trời nhanh tối.. ngồi trên xe bus cứ thấp thỏm.. Kết quả là đến được Kijkduin thì trời gần như tối mù, híc.. và lạnh (=> tất nhiên)..

2 đứa điên dành gần 1h để "sáng tạo nghệ thuật" giữa trời lạnh gió rét.. kết quả là ảnh về nhà lên giường nằm thẳng cẳng 1 lúc mới ấm người lên được.. mới hoàn hồn..

Anyway, chụp cả đống mà được 1 tấm không đến nỗi nào cũng thấy thoả :D. Mỗi cái light sphere có đều có tên đấy nhưng khốn nỗi lười blog nên đến lúc hứng thì quên béng mất, hic..

Entry for Xmas & New Year 2009

Here I'm.. back again.. London.. then Edinburgh.. This island has become a sweet home away from home.. We still feel like strangers in the land of windmills and tulips.. So we decide to celebrate Xmas and New Year with friends in the UK.. At least it is something closest to home..

It is London where I meet Ha Xu again.. It is amazing how life may turn out.. Ha and I might have never thought of us seeing each other somewhere like London.. But there we are.. wandering from Oxford circus to Piccadilly circus.. on Xmas day.. when everyone is probably spending a big warm-hearted Xmas lunch with his family.. leaving the streets all empty.. London suddenly becomes strangely quiet.. just like Hanoi on the 1st day of the New Year..

It is York where we meet Jas again.. after almost one year since we said good bye in Umea.. She is right.. you can tell anyone else about the MSPME experience.. but it only feels right.. feels real special when you can tell it to those who went through that together with you.. It is sad.. coz we can never turn back time.. All we can do is to carry it with us.. keeping it on in our memories.. and, of course, make our way to meet each other again whenever we can..

And finally we are here in Edinburgh.. Is it a "curse" that we (have to) be back and forth here from time to time? Someone wishes she could get out of the land of whisky while we were so envious of her coz we could not make it our home.. no matter how hard we tried.. It is Edinburgh where we meet up with some others in MSPME.. where we meet up with the Vietnamese gang again.. Everyone has his own agenda.. I know.. (and I do).. but it is grateful that we could all make our ways to be here or there.. somewhere in this wide world.. just to tell each other the time we shared together.. again and again.. again and again..

Who says she/ he likes winter?? I definitely don't!!

Entry for September 20, 2008

It was a bright sunny sunny day.. Thousands of colorful kites flying in the vast sky.. People from different corners of the world gathered on this Scheveningen beach (Den Haag) to fulfill their dream of flying high and freely.. Me? I want to be up there, too At least for once..

Over the past 2 years, I've been moving from one place to another every 2-6 months.. Now I'm about to move from one in Amsterdam where I've stayed for 3 months to another which is expected to be the longest 'commitment' of that sort (1 year). Every moving is different, including certainty, excitement, etc.. A guest speaker once told, ".. your location may change.. your job may change.. your colleagues, friends may change.. the only thing that matters is that your family stays permanent, which makes the rest much less difficult to deal with.." That's simply true..

Well, spirit is high.. but dealing with the removal physically has become more troublesome My belongings can no longer fit my giant Hush Puppies suitcase, which is bigger than myself.. while my baby can no longer stuff his in the big backpack with which he started 2 years ago.. Now we have 3 additional boxes.. who knows next year how many more we may need..

Although 3 months is short, this apartment deserves some words to remember.. Quite a fancy one, which offers more than we actually need.. Big living room together with kitchen.. 2 bedrooms, one of which has never been used.. 2 bathrooms.. I guess I have not promoted Amsterdam hard enough so no friends seem to be interested to come over.. The coming apartment is smaller.. a studio type.. Yet, it's always open for friends, k? So.. welcome to the land of windmills, Red light district, marijuana and magic mushroom!!

...

Arrived here safely..

Left for Berlin..

Now back for work.. 9-to-5.. 35hrs/wk.. for what they call "to pay the bills".. BUT.. may not be able to receive my first month salary (due to technical problem) => You must be kidding me!!!

Anyway, FYI, I'm still alive :D

Entry for June 17, 2008

When my first “the final shot” was written back in March, I held a little hope that shot would turn out successful. It was the last job application I pursued after a series of failure and disappointment. It’s true that just when all hope seems gone, something will turn up. In my saying, it is “Things cannot be worse!” So I got through the application form stage, the verbal - numerical - psychological online test, the 1st round interview in Edinburgh, then a half-day assessment session another month later in Singapore.. and finally, the final panel interview last week in Amsterdam. It was so so long.. almost 4 months to pursue this job application and a hell of traveling.. but it pays off indeed. I was taken to the Netherlands for merely an hour interview. Well, it cost nothing for me anyway (rather, offered me much more actually )

For this short trip, I had just enough time to take a snap shot of Amsterdam, the Hague, and Delft – the home town to Vermer, the artist of “Girl with a pearl earring”.

Amsterdam – busy, chaotic, lively – “Good girls go to heaven.. Bad girls go to Amsterdam”, they say.. Let’s see..

The Hague – "What the Hague?" - nice peaceful neighbourhood close to the nicest beach in NL – a great place to live.

Delft – cozy town with a grand square (just like some Italian towns) – we happened to be there on a Sat when they have open markets all over small streets with lots of antiques (just anything they can take out of their warehouse/back-yard)

The above photo was taken near the beach in the Hague. A group of funny sculptures, giant and tiny ones together, which reminds me so much of “The adventures of Dunno and his friends” (Cuộc phiêu lưu của Mít Đặc và các bạn) – my favorite story book of all time. I went online and got this English version with pictures:
http://home.freeuk.net/russica2/books/nez/book.html

This will do in due time while searching for a Vietnamese one. Anyone offers me one? Will trade off a coffee..

In the midst of getting totally broke, we still decided to get on a so-called April fools’ trip. It could be.. foolish in a way.. coz we were temporarily jobless and homeless . But once we started travelling, such a thing didn't matter at all . So we rented a car, stuffing all the heavy luggage at the back and start a journey from Edinburgh, where we’ve been living over the past 2 months, down to London, where we would finally take the flight back home 7 days later.

It has been advised by friends that noone should travel in the UK without a GPRS device so we should buy one, use it, trying to keep it as new as possible and then.. return it within the trial period. But stubbornness plus self-confidence (especially at my part, on navigation skill, hehe, much higher than girls’ average I guess.. to put it simple, reading map skill, except for the fact that I always mistake left with right, east with west, unless I raise my hands up ) left us with a big UK route map.. We did get lost sometimes while trying to find a lake.. or some circle stones.., which was quite fun and, of course, wasted some diesel as well. But the traffic signs here are much better than the crazy Italian system which easily got us lost for hours.

Anyway, the route this time is Edinburgh - Lake district - Bath - London. We also made some other stops on the way for Melrose Abbey, New Castle-upon-Tyne, Angel of the North, Stonehenge, etc.. We were lucky enough to have sunshine and warm weather all the way till the last day with sudden heavy snow all over England, which was nothing compared to northernmost Sweden. England’s scenery is great and I am sure it will be much better in my favorite Autumn. Anyway, Spring is great, too, with daffodils everywhere. We took lots of nice photos. Yet again, as always, I am more inclined toward photos with kids. Plus, a nice scenery will look much better with a human in it. This time 2 photos have caught my eyes, and again, both are stolen shots . One is the little girl flying a red kite on top of the hill (near Westbury White horse dated several centuries back). The other is the father and the daughter resting in the ditch where two hills meet (Avebury village, home to mysterious stone circles and more).

If I am to count the number of application forms I have submitted so far, it’ll be no fewer than my favorite number, 13. Got rejected more than 3/4 with various reasons.. Every time 1 was submitted, it was a little hope being added to the long tough quest.. And then each rejection took away that little hope and a bit confidence in myself.. Now that I’m sitting stupidly on a lousy expensive train back to Edinburgh from another 1st-round interview in London, which I did so bad that an automated rejection email is surely just on the way..

Ironically, when all hope seems gone, I feel a bit relieved as there will be no more waiting, hoping, then disappointment.. I did try my (almost) best.. I do feel a bit regretful, or unlucky, when I could not manage to get a job here.. Am I not good enough? Probably.. Am I losing confidence? Definitely..

“When one door closes, another will open” (Pulatov, 2008)

So I will take this final shot then head home.. The happiest will be my mom and dad who long wait for my return while trying to be supportive enough of my job hunt.. Yes, Mama, I am GOING HOME soon

Entry for January 16, 2008

Today we finally graduated, even though some corrections still need to be made for the thesis. A pass with distinction is not so bad, right? We will leave behind everything that has become so close, so familiar to us and move on to new lives..

During the graduation dinner, we sang "That's what friends are for" and some guys started crying. It's okay .. Keep smiling.. keep shining.. knowing you can always count on me.. For good times and bad times.. I'll be on your side forever more..

Everyone starts leaving from the next day. When could we meet again? I don't know.. Once we are in Europe, the world seems smaller.. travelling between countries seems a lot easier.. But now.. how could someone from Asia easily make a trip out to Europe or Latin America just to meet up with old friends?

We are among the last to leave this town.. It seems that we don’t want to get out of the MSPME mood to move on.. When we said good bye to one after another, it was as if they had just gone for some trip and would be back in several days.. But when the last one left, I really felt the utmost emptiness and quietness..

I miss you..