crazy/beautiful – my life as it is

flight attendants

31 Mar 2011 2 Comments

by fi in travel

14 flights in two weeks. here’s one of my many, many, many observations on air travel.

frankfurt – singapore flight (i was going to write the nationality of the flight attendant but is that racist?)
me: could you help me put this up? (pointing to  my carry-on luggage that i wanted to place on the overhead compartment)
flight attendant: smiled a sweet smile and nodded.
me: (started lifting my luggage. looking expectantly at her but got no reaction. ended up doing it myself. curses, curses, curses).

makassar – jakarta flight
me: (didn’t say anything because it was my first flight of the day and was still full of energy. didn’t need any help to lift a 9 kilo luggage.)
flight attendant: (reached out automatically and helped without being asked.)
me: (very impressed.)

oslo-ålesund flight
me: so i have to put everything on the overhead compartment? (emergency exit seat)
flight attendant: yes.
me: (placing my handbag.)
flight attendant: you want this (pointing to my mini suitcase) up here (pointing to an empty space on the overhead compartment)?
me: yes. (started lifting it by the handle)
flight attendant: (grabbed the other side of the suitcase and helped.)

indonesian flight attendants win hands down

london – 02.09.10

26 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment

by fi in travel

did the touristy thing today. big ben, london eye and buckingham palace.

(check out that crazy guy in the middle of the road.)

i wasn’t into the seeing things, i was desperate to get to chinatown to go to the asian supermarkets. we managed to find our way to chinatown on foot. oh, on the way there, there was a girl who walked in front of us and she tripped on her own feet! and she fell. by fell i mean she hit the asphalt hard and ended up sitting on awkward position. i was totally shocked and it took me a few seconds to compose myself before i could reached out and said ‘are you okay’ to her. afterwards i thought, what a stupid question. the woman just fell on her bum on a city street, obviously she wasn’t okay.

anyway. got to chinatown. went to the first supermarket we found and went crazy. cheap stuffs. lots of different things from different asian countries. about three times the size of the little asian shop we have in ålesund. i had to really restrain myself from buying too much things. it was kinda heartbreaking not being able to buy more but i was thinking about how we would take them home to ålesund so i didn’t buy too much stuffs.

figured out that the china town is at the same area with the theatre we were at to see mamma mia! the day before.

we had yum cha for lunch. last time i had yum cha was when we went home to indo uhh… three years ago?

we then walked through st james park to buckingham palace. didn’t take any picture but i’m not really a monarchy kinda person. of course if prince william was there giving every female a peck on the cheek it would be another story altogether. i know, harry is better looking now but i used to daydream about prince william back when i was still in my white-and-red uniform. it went on to early days of white-and-grey uniform. but no, no prince giving out free peck on the cheek so we saw and left.

after we got back to the hotel, we went out to this asian supermarket nearby bayswater underground station, about 10 minutes walk from our hotel. again, try to buy not too much. again, heartbreaking

look, i found pei pa koa. would’ve bought more of it if the bottle wasn’t so heavy. bought indomie goreng too.

for dinner we wanted korean. MOH and i love korean food and i can’t even begin to tell you how much i love kimchi. we had a map and list of korean restaurants given to us by the concierge at our hotel and armed with that, we went looking for some korean food.

we got to our first choice but it turned the restaurant was no longer korean, it was now japanese. what a disappointment. so we continue our search and finally found one. the food was good though not as good as that restaurant at queen street mall in brissie. quite pricey too but we’ve been so deprived of korean food, we didn’t really care. and this is london, after all. but. we didn’t get any banchan. isn’t that the norm at korean restaurants? you get the banchan for free? part of the deal, no? anyway, at this place, you have to order the banchan and pay for them. dang. we used to ask forfree  refill back in brisbane. as much as we liked. goodness me. so we ordered kimchi and the bean sprouts thingy.

that’s all for today.

london – 01.09.10

24 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment

by fi in travel

30 years old and celebrating in style, baby!!!

off to madame tussauds first thing in the morning to avoid the queue. we were there very early, sometimes before 10, but when we got in, it was already packed. so packed in fact that it was difficult to see the figures.

some of those figures are scarily spot on while other are a bit… meeeeh. with all the people in there, i got a bit confused at times over which were real humans and which were the wax figures. seriously.

took a lot of photos of MOH but this one is my favourite.

this is the only clear pic of me. i married a man who can’t take a clear picture. tragic.

(i look pregnant, i know. forgot the belt. but now that we’ve established that i’m horrendously fat, let’s just focus on the wax figure i was standing next to. i mean,  hello, sexy!)

i just want to say this to anybody who hasn’t been to the scary part of the madame tussauds. can’t remember the name but it’s the part with real people. the part with real people who hide themselves. the part with real people who hide themselves and then come out of the blue screaming at you. the part with real people who hide themselves and then come out of the blue screaming at you making you jump out of freight and set your heart racing. oh, and they were in costumes complete with scary make-up. unless you love being scared half to death, do not go near that area. i walked with my  head down, screamed like  a mad woman and sweated like i just ran a marathon. phew.

had lunch at a pub after madam tussauds. the worst meal i had while i was in london. i had vegie sausages and mashed potatoes with brown gravy. the sausages were choked full of herb, it was unpeasant. the mashed was microwaved and absolutely tasteless, and the gravy was from a box. gross.

went back to the hotel to get ready for the most exciting part of the trip.

mamma mia!!!!!!!!!!!

mamma mia was awesome. fabulous. amazing. fantastic. i can’t put it into words, it was that good. the theatre was super warm though and i had tights, jumper and boots on. but that has nothing to do with the show itself. which was great. i’m telling you, it was great!

it was so much fun and the performers did such wonderful job. there were a few standouts for me, the ladies who played the mum and her friends, and one of the daughter’s best friends. i could not take my eyes off her because she was such an amazing dancer. obviously they all could dance but that girl was so, so, so incredibly good.

at the end we all got up and sang along to two songs. i might or might not have did a little bit of screaming at that point.

back to the hotel for dinner, yesterday’s takeaway sushi.

it was a nice way to celebrate turning 30. i was less depressed as i would’ve been otherwise.

london – 31.08.10

23 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment

by fi in travel

our hotel was practically next door to the lancaster gate underground station so that was great. on our first full day in london, we took the underground to bond street station (two stops away) because i wanted to walk along oxford street.

the underground in london might be smelly and hot and are always full, but i love how effective they are. we made our way around london using them. all you need is an oyster card which you can top up as you go and a map of the underground and you’re good to go.

the first shop we went to was hmv. i haven’t been to hmv since i left brisbane! three storeys with books, dvd’s and cd’s. holy moly. we went around going, ‘i want that, i want that, i want that’. we decided not to buy anything until the last day even though a lot of things were on sale befause i thought, what happened if we see something cheaper somewhere else.

after that we kinda just walked along oxford street. we went to marks & spencer and bought time out. i love time out. lovelovelove. again, years since i last had one. and then for lunch, we had sushi.

we had sushi for lunch.

i’ll say it again, sushi for lunch.

…..

about 5NOK for a piece of sushi. we ate heaps and then bought two boxes to take back to the hotel. what? it’s been a long time since we last walked into a place that sells sushi, ok. we live in a village!

here are the boxes that we bought and took back to the hotel. we ate about the same amount for lunch. the small box was bought from tesco. baaaaaad sushi.

and then… and then i found starbucks. now starbucks and sushi, that was like the old days. i always had sushi and starbucks in brisbane. so i had my first frappuccino since 2004. we could’ve gone back to ålesund after that and i’d be happy enough. after sushi and starbucks, i felt like… missions accompalished.

(yes, we had to pay for the sachets of soy sauce and wasabi. to think that i used to grabbed as many sachets as i wanted when i had takeaway sushi and didn’t have to pay a cent for them. is this common practice these days?)

went back to the hotel and asked the concierge where the nearest tesco was because i was on the mission to find tim tam and according to the internet, you can get them at tescos.

the concierge was super chatty. we must’ve been there talking to him for at least half-an-hour. got to tesco, didn’t find tim tams but found amazingly cheap alcohols. they were amazingly cheap.

for dinner, we made it to the japanese nooodles place. MOH tasted asahi beer for the first time and became a fan. the food was good, came in huge portion. we did manage to finish our food though. can’t remember how much we paid and can’t find the receipt probably under £25. two drinks, two main meals and an appetizer.

that was that for that day.

london – 30.08.10

16 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment

by fi in travel

on the way to the airport, right before the tunnel, we came to a dead stop. the tunnel was closed. the tunnel, which we had to drive through to get to the airport, was closed! we sat in the car, not moving (engine off and all) for what must’ve been around half-an-hour. i kept checking the time, getting more and more nervous by the time because what the heck were we going to do if we missed our flight?????

we made it to the airport okay. got to oslo okay. shopped at duty free then proceeded to our gate. i got my passport stamped. woo hoo!!! travelling within europe is so boring, you hardly ever get through immigration so your passport very rarely get stamped (or even checked at all) but uk is not part of schengen so i got a stamp on my passport.

and speaking about going through immigration… once we landed in london, we were at the immigration and when the officer saw my passport, asked me if i’ve filled this form which i guess is kinda like arrival card you fill when travelling to indo. the stupid thing is, when you fly to indo, they hand out the forms during the flight and this was not done on the london flight. so i had to take the form from the immigration officer and filled it up quickly then waited again. stupid, i tell you.

anyhow. no problem through immigration. got our luggage, found the heathrow express and off we went to the city. the stop was at paddington station which was a five-minutes walk from our hotel.

the hotel was nice. but. it didn’t exactly cater for super tall scandinavian. the bed was kinda short that even i had my feet dangling a few cm off the bed when i slept. and the bathroom was itsy bitsy. still nice though.

after relaxing for a bit, we had a shower then went out for dinner. we were going to go to this japanese restaurant found on one of our guidebooks but it turned out to be too long of a way so about 1/3 of a way (or maybe 1/4), we turned around. we must’ve walked around 45 minutes and it was super crowded even though it was after 9pm. i think it was the bank holiday.

so we turned back to the hotel and luckily for us, there was a indian restaurant across the street from our hotel. we paid around £17 for a seafood dish, a vegie dish, one serving of rice, a beer and a bitter lemon. we were stuffed silly. for that amount of money, we wouldn’t even get two burgers in ålesund. oh, joy.

we went back to the hotel to sleep.

after the holiday

11 Sep 2010 2 Comments

by fi in travel

london – AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

while i probably would go crazy if i had to take the warm and stinky underground every day, i wouldn’t mind living a few hours drive away from london so i could visit it frequently. that would be soooooo good.

i had the greatest time. and i did fun stuffs for my birthday.

16 extra kilos of baggage later, we came home.

home on saturday, worked on monday. and this week, i worked 53 hours. talk about crashing back to reality.

i will write about our days in london. which reminds me, still haven’t finished writing about the rome holiday. i’m such a slacker.

i’ll be working 53 hours again next week so we’ll see how things go.

here’s a picture taken from behind our hotel room’s window. sunset over london.

oh, how i miss london.

rome – day 3

14 Jan 2010 Leave a Comment

by fi in travel

the food:

• breakfast: scrambled egg and juice.
• lunch: none.
• afternoon tea: a cup of hot chocolate. not as thick like the one from the first day but not too bad. the taste was ok. i think the don’t put sugar in their hot chocolate, which suits me just fine. you got a sachet of sugar with your hot chocolate instead.
• dinner: grilled octopus with spaghetti. tomato-based sauce. i’ve heard of al dente, but this restaurant certainly took al dente to the next level; the spaghetti was crunchy. shared a dessert with MOH. don’t remember what it was called, like a sponged cake soaked in liquor. too sweet for me. also had a shot of limoncello.

what we did:

• sat on a tour bus that got stuck in traffic for what i reckon was half-an-hour because some stupid wanker parked his car in a way that blocked the bus to take a corner. i think. i couldn’t see anything because i sat behind a metal wall in the bus and the window next to me was covered with huge stickers of the name of the bus and whatnot. i took a nap. it was actually a double-decker but we couldn’t sit upstairs because it was raining.
• went to the ‘time elevator’ and watched a 5d movie on the beginning of life on earth and a movie about ancient rome.
• took the bus back to the hotel. sat on top and froze.
• saw colosseum for the first time from the bus. now, i’m not into ancient history. i’m not into seeing old buildings. but as i saw colloseum for the first time i have to say it kinda took my breathe away a bit. it was impressive. huuuuge, beautiful and looked just like it usually looks on tv or on papers. wooow…

rome – day 2

06 Dec 2009 2 Comments

by fi in travel

the food:

• breakfast: gooey scrambled eggs, a pastry and a couple of glasses of juices (pineapple and orange).
• morning tea: a cup of gorgeous hot chocolate. it was dark, not too sweet and, most importantly, thick. so thick that i couldn’t drink it straight from the cup; i had to spoon it like soup. so, so good.
• lunch: a pizza on a base so thin, it broke when folded. it had simple toppings: diced tomatoes, sliced fresh mozarella and shredded basils leaves with a drizzle of olive oil. no tomato sauce, no melted cheese. out of this world. really. holy moly.
• dinner: chinese. shared a plate of plain rice, tofu in oyster sauce and prawns in chilli sauce with MOH. we also ordered a plate of sushi and shared it between the four of us. let’s just take a moment here.
  i went to italy and had sushi. it was the first sushi i’ve had (not counting the one i made myself) since i left brisbane in 2004. i was so happy i almost cry.

what we did:

• went out to check the area around the hotel. walked along the river (tiber, i think what it’s called). i don’t know if we were going there purposely or just followed the crowd or the road but we ended up in at piazza san pietro (st peter’s square).
  
  basilica di san pietro (st peter’s basilica)
  MOH wanted to go inside the basilica but my goodness, the line was looooong. it was almost halfway around the square.
• we went looking for the spanish steps but couldn’t figure out from the little pictures on the map which was the spanish steps so we ended up at piazza navona. it was the most charming square with three fountains in the middle. surrounded by cute buildings in cute colours. somehow, i don’t have a photo of that place, i don’t know why. but google it to see how pretty it is.
• finally got to piazza di spagna.
  climbed up the spanish steps and took this picture midway up.
  
  we were tired so i didn’t take many photos, not even of the steps. but we did go back there on later days and take more photos.
• checked out the designer shops lining the road leading up to the spanish steps. cartier, ferragamo, chanel, prada, jimmy choo, louis vuitton, burberry. those are just the ones i remember. it was a long road.

rome – day 1

03 Dec 2009 2 Comments

by fi in travel

the food:

• brekkie – waffle with brown cheese at vigra (ålesund airport)
• lunch – some grilled shrimps with salad and sweet chilli sauce at copenhagen airport. with an extra serving of a strand of hair in the salad. hmmmmmm… guess hairnet hasn’t reached copenhagen yet.
• afternoon tea - hot chocolate at copenhagen airport.
• dinner – nothing

what we did:

• woke up early. boo hoo!!!
• flew to oslo.
• shopped like crazy at duty free oslo. i need duty free because i live in a remote village with very little selection of goods. and what they have are very expensive.
  so here they are. mostly perfumes and deodorants. not in picture: lipbalm from l’occitane and glosses from lancome and mac. i can’t find them in ålesund, ok!!!
  
• i was amazed by how big and busy copenhagen airport was. it went a bit like this: wow. huge airport. lots of people. wow. why didn’t i fall in love and married a dane who lived in copenhagen?
• flew to rome. read my magazine all the way to rome but put it away in the last 20 minutes of the flight. as we were landing, i saw outside the window and what did i see but lots of lights (it was already dark). lots of lights is a good sign, it means a big city.
• stood around waiting for our luggages for almost an hour at rome airport.
• got on to the cab (not a traditional cab, the more expensive version. a van, not a sedan) which travelled 120k/h on the highway. there were a lot of cars on the road but we didn’t slow down once. quite curious about that. i think it was because people knew what they were doing and changed lanes like crazy when the lane they were in seemed to go slower. our driver was driving like a maniac. not only was he constantly changing lanes, he was also driving on the white line sometimes, occupying two lanes at once.
• watched in wonder as our cabbie answered his phone and texted while driving over 100k/h. wondered why he was the only one in the cab with a blackberry. my mum offered to buy me a blackberry because apparently, that’s the rage in indo at the moment. when i mentioned blackberry in norway, people looked at me in a weird way because they haven’t a clue what a blackberry is. we’re very updated in norway, you see.
• checked in at the hotel. the lady at the reception desk spoke english with a very strong italian accent. for a hotel receptionist, her english wasn’t that good. we understood each other but a joke was out of a question.
• went up to our room. got in and was impressed. it was very clean and smelled very nice for a smoking room (can you believe it? 2009 and you can still request a smoking room).
  
  flash your keycard here. you have a bell (because knocking at the door is so… out?) and you can see if there are people in the room or not. i’ll have another post to show the inside of the room.
• it was almost 9pm so i just unpacked the suitcases, had a shower and crashed.