2011/03/14

OK Paris, I'm Giving You A Second Chance!

Please please please.. Do not let me down this time!

I didn't sketch that Eiffel tower

Three years ago I went to Paris and I was practically underwhelmed. Pardon me, but who in the world didn't have high expectations when you were visiting one of the greatest cities?

To be fair, I chose the worst time possible. Paris in her early-May was always wet and gloomy. I was four days in Paris; And the only day that didn't rain, was the last day when I rushed to the airport to catch my morning flight. In the end, I refuse to believe the fact that Parisians have ever experienced a sunny day.

To make the timing worse, the other two days on my trip were labor-days holiday. Yes, the two days in the whole year when the shops, museums, or nearly everything were closed.

The streets were full of protesters and I got this nervous feeling that the demonstration would anytime turned violent. Oh yeah.. The other things that filled the streets? Homeless and garbage. Because you know, when the garbage collectors joined the demonstrations, no one else was picking up those big trash piles. I took one rather ironic photo of a tourists couple, who were coming out from Metro stations with its iconic Art Nouveau Metropolitain gate, looked disgusted by the stinking display of 2 meter-high pile of trash outside. The third person on the photo (probably a Parisian), just walked nonchalantly.

In addition to those unfortunate events, I had a few minor incidents here and there, showing how true the common (mis)conception could be: Parisians can be so blatantly rude to non-French-speaking. So yes, I didn't have a good time on my first visit to this majestic city. I also didn't have a good story to tell. It was all just a big "meh".

Anyway this time, I'm giving Paris a second chance. The weather would be so much better. I'm gonna travel in a big group, where one of us is a native Parisian. I'm also planning to meet some old friends. And I've been feeding myself with information about Paris' historical and architectural attractions. I'm excited. I feel that I'm ready to fall in love with Paris.

At least for now, the WeatherPro app is promising me some fine Paris sky.

The only downside of the trip is that I will miss my son's half-year birthday. I'm sure I'm gonna miss the little guy so bad.

2011/03/07

A Different Thing Everyday In A Month

Office's server was down this morning. So, like any other bored colleagues, I browsed Internet. Wait, I actually don't need a reason to browse Internet, just the offline server made it feel more justified, he he.

I stumbled across this simple but neat blog. The story was: the author felt wearied and people in the Internet suggested him to do something 'different' everyday of the whole month. That, my friends, was one of the most awesome suggestions you can expected by asking random strangers in the Internet. So he ended up doing many things new, things that would repulse him, or just things that he hadn't do for a long time.



Some interesting examples:
  • Free boxing lesson
  • Went to a shooting range
  • Paid a panhandler $100 to have lunch with and tell the author his story
  • Volunteered in food bank
  • Went to a Tea Party meeting
  • Went to a mosque
  • Saw a friend perform brain surgery on a mouse and implant lasers in its head.
I found this inspiring. Perhaps, I might do something similar when I'd feel down.

2011/03/03

Happy Fat Thusday!

Yes, such day exists! In coincide with Carnival, today is the day to get yourself stuffed! Yeah!

And in Slovenia, the tradition is to eat Krof. It's loosely translated to doughnut. However, saying Krof is a doughnut is like saying Bratwurst a sausage. It's not wrong, but you have to be more specific than that.


Two oversized Krof from Trojane

2011/02/14

The Best Way You Can Do As Parents

I just stumbled to a very thoughtful post online. I think everyone should read it.

I think that the best you can do as parents is to instill CORE values like being respectful, compassionate, truthful, curious, empathic, etc and hope that NO MATTER WHAT decisions they make for themselves that you don't agree with, they will exhibit those values within their new belief framework.

I believe that this shall applies to everyone no matter what religions, beliefs, social economic status, or education level you have! If you want to make the world a better place, start within your family and children.

Read more of the original post here.

2011/02/11

Dreaming A Dream

So I was having a dinner in a fancy apartment with some very nice people. There were five of us and we were sitting on the big glass table, enjoying very good wine. I sat next to my wife. I didn't know the other three persons.

The friendly lady, who looked in her mid forties, was the host of the dinner. The apartment was hers. Very clean one I must say, something you might see in those interior design magazines. Every thing in that apartment looked shiny and too fragile to be touched.

Living single, childless, and having a top-paying job made all these possible. It's not so hard for her to pampered the guests. It was probably safe to assumed that hosting dinner and making her guests impressed were among a few things in the world that kept her entertained. She dressed herself very well, too. And behind her make-up, you can see a face that once bloomed in her younger years.

The other two persons were a couple. They're younger than the lady host. Both of them were the quite type and mostly shy, but several times in the evening the man broke the ice with some jokes. Maybe they were like me, overwhelmed by the place, the food, the drink or just about everything in the dinner. Most of the time we let the lady host did the talking.

Then suddenly it struck me. I remember the couple! They were on my dream on the previous night. Now, how that possible? I never seen them before the dinner!

So for the first time in the evening, I let myself loose. I started to tell everyone about the dream, thus setting the table attention to me. I began with so much enthusiasm. Because for me, the dream was so fun and absurd that I must share it.

I tried to explain them the dream's context. It was a hard task because I usually never remember my dreams. I recalled a cold winter day. It was on a place that seemed like an exterior of a huge TV studio. I was waiting for an acquittance, who was inside working.

After probably half an hour, he came out from the building to see me. He wasn't alone, he came with someone else. A girl. A girl that looked extremely familiar. The second I finally recognized her, I tried so hard to contained my excitement. But hey, I'm no actor and probably did a terrible job hiding it. The girl was no other than Tina Maze. Who?

This Tina Maze

Surprisingly, I had no problem explaining to them why Tina Maze was on my dream. Maybe unconsciously I'm a big fan and just realized it on my dream. She WAS a great alpine skier anyway, no doubt about that. She was an Olympic medalist, and beloved by the country. Plus, she was often on TV and commercials.

The guy introduced me to Tina Maze, who turned out to be a very nice person. We were talking a bit and then decided to go skiing. No surprise.

A few hours later, me, my wife, Tina and that guy were already in the mountain. There were some small ski resorts with their own ski slopes. The weather was remarkably nice, a few clouds here and there, but mostly sunny and the ground was all covered with snow. I tried skiing first, but after an hour, I decided to go hiking instead. The others continued skiing.

After sunset, we spent the evening at a cabin. We were sitting together near the fireplace, talking about the day. I couldn't remember much at this point, but I was aware that the same couple, who were in the dinner, were there with us in the cabin! That was insane! I didn't remember how they came there at the first place. I haven't never see them before and they were already in my dream!

The dream quickly ended as my baby boy's cry woke me up. That also concluded my story. The couple looked somewhat baffled, yet not so fascinated in figuring out why they were in my dream. They just accepted that these kind of things just happened. Inexplainable. We continued the dinner by opening another bottle of wine.

But suddenly something more absurd happened...


I heard my baby boy crying and I woke up! It took me a few seconds to realized that everything was just a dream! The dinner was a dream! The couple, the lady host, the fancy apartment; Everything was in a dream! And... Tina Maze was a dream WITHIN a dream!!




There was another weird thing. I could swear that in my dream's dream, I felt one whole day was gone. From the meeting with Tina Maze, until the evening at the cabin. Even tough I couldn't recall every single thing and a lot of things were blurred, I could somewhat grasped the length of the time; it felt like one-day long! But when I looked at the clock next to my bed, I only slept no more than one hour and a half.

I thanked Inception for helping to realize that my dream was.. interesting.


DISCLAIMER: Based on true event. However, many details were recreated since I couldn't recall every single thing in my dream.