boon and carms outside the pantheon, rome. dec'06

it's been a wonderful crazy busy december.
lots of traveling and i love traveling.
lots of little adventures. good and bad.
some of you have heard already... so you can skip this.

#1 - boon's luggage was lost between cleveland/NYC and london. after much pain, calls and threats, we got his luggage 2hrs before we head to rome. tsk tsk.

#2 - bad service with BA and london heathrow airport. argh. terrible. absolutely terrible. please try not to fly with them. ever.

#3 - rented a car in rome to drive to florence. 1hr drive out. we decided to drive back to return it. traffic was so bad and stressful. so unless we have a GPS, driving in rome is out. so we decided to take a train to florence instead. absolutely brilliant decision. stressfree traveling. and i'm glad we got there 'cos Florence is gorgeous. love it. beautiful place.

#4 - my handbag was stolen in barcelona. good thing was that my wallet and passport weren't in there. the most expensive thing is my parents' new digi cam and the pictures in there. argh. thank goodness it is only a day's worth of pictures but it was taken when we were at Gaudi's Sagrada Familia! argh. it's one of the most amazing building i've ever seen. seriously. but we are amazed at how discreet they were and how professional they are. my bag at my feet (silly me to leave it on the floor), boon nxt to me and andrew seated directly opposite me. all 3 of us didn't see it happen. how is it possible, i don't know. ah wells. that aside, barcelona is a nice place to be. i think we'll go back again. it's a little quaint and quirky. it's not like rome where pple are all dressed up in gucci and prada. everyone is a little more quirky, more individualistic. they have their own sense of style. more small local designers. it was quite tragic 'cos we were there during the Christmas period... all shops are closed on christmas and boxing day. we thought we would be able to shop on boxing day. ah wells. it's fine. we'll just have to visit again. :)

#5 bad service at heathrow airport AGAIN. first the business class aisle took at least 30-45mins to clear 'cos boon was on business. then we were shoved to the first class counter... and the lady at the firstclass counter was terrible. she was so slow and then missed the LAST AISLE seat for me. and lectured us on why we should do online check-in nxt time! my goodness! and then told us to run to our gate cos it was closing!!! then i got the middle seat (i absolutely hate those.) and to make matters worse, one guy nxt to me had terrible BO. oh gosh. can faint man. and nxt, the audio for the inflight entertainment was scratchy (apparently the whole plane was like that) and then i decided to read. but my light wasn't working!!! it was unbearable. so i had to change seat. thank God the other seat wasn't so bad. no BO, light working and bearable scratchy sound though stuck in the middle. i had such a bad flight that boon decided to upgrade me to business on my flight back to perth. :) how nice.

#6 - friend got caught with alcohol in system while driving in kl with all of us in the car. erm first hand experience of "police at work" in kl. you can just imagine. we have some doubts about the equipment though. it's so different from australia's. and the point is not to catch people drink driving but helping them out with a better lifestyle 'cos they immediately sent my friend off driving with alcohol in system. i don't even know if he was really over the limit. the police just poked his head into the car to smell the driver's breath. and the only way to know whether you are over the limit is just a positive or negative light. is that the way right? 'cos usually you know how much over the limit you are right? ah wells.

so, besides all these tragic incidents, the holiday was amazing.
saw lots. it would be much better if we had more time in each city.
i don't like running around, moving from one to another so quickly.
it's quite amazing to see the buildings you've learnt in uni. to see it in person, is amazing.
esp the sagrada familia. you realise how much it has influenced the city.
barcelona is an interesting city. gothic, modern and quirky. i like it.
florence, a beautiful, pretty city. would love to spend more time there.
rome, rich in it's history. a little too chaotic. lots of graffiti. shopping frenzy near the spanish steps. great place to people watch. lots of beggars too.
london, is massive and expensive. but can be quite pretty and surreal while walking the streets. the bad weather can be really annoying.

okie dokes. till the nxt time i blog, take care!
laters.