Wednesday 24 August 2011

You’ve got Talent

(via)


Our company has a campaign about talents and stuff, I’m not really sure about the mechanics but from what my officemate told me you have to register your talent and share it with the rest of your colleagues. Initially, I thought it was all about singing and dancing or maybe even taking photos. But from what I’ve learned over lunch today, the scope of the talent search they were referring to goes far beyond that. Apparently, one of the talents registered is shopping around Amsterdam :D. Those people who want to subscribe to witness that talent first hand will be scheduled to go to Amsterdam sometime this week. I can’t discredit that, I do believe that is a talent. LOL!

After my colleague mentioned that, another of my lunch buddies faced me and this is how our discussion went.

Lunch buddy: Hey Christian, you should also register your talent!

Me: What talent is that talent that you’re suggesting I register?

Lunch buddy: Online shopping using the credit card of your Husband!

Toink! I couldn’t agree more, online shopping is a talent that needs to be honed constantly (to the utter delight of my honey, LOL), but I’m not ready to share that talent to everyone just yet. :D

Friday 19 August 2011

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes



My honey is such a sweetheart, he told me that no matter how busy we both get, we should always make time for each other and he suggested we fix a day of the week for our date night. He thought Thursday would be the best day so for a couple of months now we’ve been having our date nights no matter what.

Yesterday was Thursday again so it was date night for us. We planned to go to a movie, initially we were planning to see Green Lantern, but hubby arrived later than expected and we wanted to have dinner with Bee first so we ended up in settling for the Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

I’m glad we ended up watching this movie coz it was really entertaining. The plot was developed quite well. The story revolves around a scientist (James Franco) who is trying to develop a cure for alzheimers to help his father who is suffering from the ailment. He was testing the drug he was trying to develop on apes. The drug improved the intelligence of the ape massively, the ape had faculties almost that of a human. Little did the scientist know that the ape he was treating with the cure was pregnant and she passed on the effects of the cure to her baby.

The movie had all the ingredients of a good flick. It combines emotions, titillating scientific ideas, great special effects, a dash of action scenes and cute and adorable monkeys, what more can you ask for?

Honey and I really enjoyed the movie.

Thursday 18 August 2011

Geneva Switzerland






Switzerland is known for its luxurious watches and breathtaking mountains, however, being the chocoholic that I am, it is surprising that Geneva has never been on my list of cities that I would want to visit since they are famous for their chocolates, among other things. So I was really thrilled that this year’s Couples for Christ European Conference was held in this city. This gave me an excuse to explore the city that I have overlooked for so long.

A warm and breezy summer day welcomed us to Geneva. The city is clean and quite modern. From the airport, we needed to take a bus to go to our hotel, which was to our pleasant surprise, free of charge. People are nice and very helpful.

After we checked in, the concierge of our hotel gave us trip tickets, he told us that we can use the public transportation for free our entire stay. Isn’t that a great deal.

One of the things that always fascinate me in a city is their architecture. I must say, I am partial to Gothic, Romanesque and Baroque architectures. That is one reason why I fell in love with Prague. The buildings in Geneva are more modern and looks quite new. After all, they are more famous for their ski resorts rather than their architecture. My favourite spot in Geneva is the lake. It’s so refreshing to look into the lake. We even explored the lake by taking boats. We aimlessly took several boats just to cover the entire lake. The cool breeze was such a welcome relief to the very warm day.



One of my favourite meals in Geneva was from a restaurant called Les Relais del entrecote. They serve steaks (as the name suggests). They only serve one kind of steak and they will just ask you how you want it done. The steak is split and served twice, I think so it won’t get cold, and you’ll get two portions of fries as well. The meat is perfectly seasoned, the sauce that comes with it is to die for and the fries are yummy, even Charlie loved it!



The word that stuck into my mind when after we’ve been to Geneva is “expensive”. I have lived in the Netherlands for quite some time now and a lot of people told me that this is an expensive city, but I already got used to it. I wonder how those people who told me Amsterdam is expensive if and when they visit Geneva would react. I was really surprised that the prices there are two or three times more than the prices in Amsterdam.

I’m sure we’re not coming back to Geneva anytime soon (as I’m still saving up for the watch I want to buy honey…. Maybe we’ll go back when I’m done saving :D) but it was a lovely city.