Elena's birthday-Part 2

The second part of elena's post- birthday party was an enjoyable one. The guests feasted on roasted pig, grilled chicken, menudo and a lot more. There were also the well-loved Filipino dessert like leche plan and turon which i prepared and also palitaw, kuchinta, biko, kalamay, butse and puto. We really have a nice time because of the presence of wilson, our gay friend who is the star of the night.

Its just a coincidence that the girls wear white pants. With them is the birthday girl in the middle.

The girls in multi-color outfit

Me (in the middle) with the Freiburg girls

Pau and Omega

Pau and omega are always with us when we returned from our Philippines vacation. They are our liniment friends that relieve our body pains and other ailments. Omega pain killer is dirk's favorite liniment especially after playing golf. Dirk proved it effective for fast relief of his foot pains and other muscle discomforts. Some of our german friends don't like the smell of omega but who cares, as long as it helps us its fine.

After my work in the hotel, i always apply Pau liniment. It relaxes my muscles and relieves body pains. I like the penetrating heat that goes through the skin and muscle tissues. We always see to it that our pau and omega will lasts till our next travel to the Philippines.

Carpooling

Carpooling also means car-sharing and ride-sharing. In going to work, we just use one car, either its mine or with my best friend's joy car. We named our cars "Pangga" (my white opel astra-parked behind) and "Panggo" (joy's dark green Ford car).

Here are the advantages of carpooling:
1. it saves gasoline cost
2. reduce driving stress
3. reduce the number of cars on the road
4. decreases pollution and the need for parking space
5. less maintenance cost because of low mileage, thus, extending the car's life

Pangga and me in front of Rammersweier Hof (the hotel where we work)

Heinz and Carmen's Birthdays

Yesterday we attended the 70th birthday of Heinz, the husband of our colleague Beate. He looked younger in his age because of positive outlook in life. As i observed, German partiess are more of sitting, eating and talking to each other while drinking white whine or beer, compared to Filipino parties which are more of action, dancing, karaoke, parlor games, jokes sharing and you know lots of never ending blah blah blah....

The birthday girl in green shirt below

Today is also the 55th birthday of my dear friend Carmen. She's holding two jobs and still very energetic at her age. She's very pessimistic in life and had a happy disposition. With her tight schedule, she always find time to enjoy some nightlife.

For the two birthday celebrants, they have one thing in common- they never grow old, they're still young at hearts

Costs-Cutting Measures

With the increase in the cost of living worldwide and the salary still the same, its just practical to find ways to reduced some of the expenses. To cope up, we recently converted our car into LPG Gas Auto which creates a safe, easy, and best of all much cheaper fuel than petrol or diesel. It is typically at least 50% cheaper than other automotive fuels and is environmentally friendly. With the conversion, we saves at least 60% on gasoline cost.

As the price of heating with oil increased, we now used pellets heating system. One liter of oil is now 97 cents and 2 kilos of wood pellets which is equivalent to 1 liter of oil is 34 cents. In the process we saved at least 3000 euro heating cost every year.

The wood pellets

Other ways to cut our expenses are:
1. We don't make new purchases of non-essential goods and services
2. We reduced overseas calls by installing Skype
3. We also limit the use of our SL car just to save on gasoline

Maureen and me

Shower and Saving Energy

In order to save energy this summer, we already switched off the central heating in our house. That means we don't have anymore hot water in all our faucets and showers. But taking shower using cold water is not good for the body especially in the early morning.

Dirk found a solution by installing an electric water heater which will save us around 1000 euro a year. The cost of living here in Germany is getting more expensive and its just practical to find a solution.

For our future retirement house in the Philippines, we decided that we're going to buy some of the bathroom fixtures here like the shower because of its good quality and its more cheaper.

All Night Birthday Party

The last guests for my birthday party left at 6 in the morning. With my more or less 50 guests, we enjoyed the day and night dancing, karaoke singing, the kids playing and updating each others lives coz we really missed each other. We also enjoyed the foods prepared by yours truly and by my friends especially ate lita who was not able to make it but send 4 bilao of kuchinta, puto, butse and palitaw. I don't feel old at all coz i have a wonderful partner in life dirk, who is very loving & supportive and my friends who are always there through thick and thin.

Dancing with dirk, and hopefully till our hair are all gray

The kitchen department

Annika with Oma Tonette

Maureen's song and dance in the couch

Kids having fun

Karaoke a "must" to all Filipino parties

Dancing Queens
all pictures

Post birthday celebration

Today, i'm going to celebrate my post-birthday party. Its just a small party and i invited only my close friends unlike before that my guests reached 150. Its less stressful, economical, practical, easy to organize and besides its been two weeks since my birthday. I'm going to post more pictures tomorrow coz i will be busy attending to my guests.

The Foods

My Guests and Gifts

Ice Foot and Foot Salad

Because of his aching foot, dirk was advised by his doctor to put ice cubes on his right foot. He used an old salad bowl where he put lots of ice cubes. I joked on him that we have foot salad and not fruit salad and instead of ice candy, its ice foot.

The poor salad bowl

Also today, i have my first experience of helping in the hotel kitchen. There's no dull moment coz everybody is busy with their own task from the hotel chef and waitresses to the dishwashers. I help in the dishwashing and its really fun as if we're just playing. After helping, we ate schnitzel, french fries and spätzle, not bad for half an hour kitchen adventure.

Oooops, photo session time

Corpus Christi

Today is a religious holiday (Fronleichnam or Corpus Christi) here in Baden Württemberg. It is a christian feast day or solemnity commemorating the supreme gift of the institution by Jesus Christ of the Holy Eucharist on the thursday following trinity sunday. The most important part of the Corpus Christi liturgy is the holy mass and procession wherein there is a flower carpet along its routes.

My New Handy

Today, i got my new cellphone, a nokia 5310XpressMusic model. It is an all-in-one music device of impeccable style. Its very slim with great audio quality, easy music in one touch and crystal clear sounds.It also take beautiful, high quality photos with a 2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom. Now, i can enjoy my favorite tracks and this new gadget is indeed an addition to my increasing number of cellphones.

Dinner with the Best of Friends

ProHoGa, is a wholesale store located at Niederschofheim, Germany where you can buy foods, fruits, asian foods etc. at a lower price. We bought tiger prawns which is a Philippine product and we were surprised with the inceased in price. Upon reaching home, Joy cooked the big shrimps with coconut milk, pumpkin and string beans. She started eating when suddenly thought of continuing her dinner with us, so they carried the cooked foods and her unfinished plate with rice to us and we really had a wonderfull dinner together.

Double Purpose

Upon returning home yesterday, i was surprised to see Dirk removing the skin of asparagus using his bulging stomach as table while watching the television. He also sometimes placed his small loptop in that position as well, dual purpose right???

Mrs Philippines Beauty-Freiburg

Together with my friends, we did drive to Emmendingen to watched the search for Mrs Philippines Beauty-Freiburg yesterday. It was a very colorful event which showcased the 12 contestants beauty and talent. Organizing events for a worthy cause really involved lots of patience and hard work. For more pictures, visit our website.

The Agony of Waiting

We've been travelling for the past seven years and there's always the scenario of lining up and waiting. You need to line up to check-in the luggages, baggage control, immigration and wait to claim the luggage. So there's a lot of waiting involve especially if its a long distance travel.

Reading Yes magazine while waiting for the gates to open

The girl with a magazine as head

For me, waiting is not a problem coz i have a pile of magazines and books to read. Browsing the shops in the airport is also one way to while away the time.

Inside the plane dirk was fascinated by the model house feature in Yes magazine

Oh!!! these are our luggages waiting to be loaded inside the car, and who's going to do it? the jet-setters already tired of waiting?? let's wait and see...

Men's Golf Trip

Yesterday, dirk and his golf buddies played golf in koenigsfeld somewhere in the black forest 80 kilometers from appenweier. We've just came from a golf vacation and dirk really never get tired playing his favorite sport. He's playing everyday and an active member of Golf Urloffen e.v.

My new samsung cellphone is not functioning properly so i need to return it to the Vodafone Shop. They gave me a temporary replacement while repairing the kaputt one, but sad to say, the replacement is also kaputt, what a day!!!

Elena's Birthday

Elena's birthday celebration started on the eve of her birthday, then, with breakfast and white wine toasting with friends. It was followed by a typical Filipino lunch with fried fish, shrimps, pansit and ginisang munggo. I'm supposed to be on a diet but i cannot control myself.

Its an all-day celebration coz some of our friends are coming in the evening for dinner. Hold your breath, its just a pre-birthday party, the big bash will be at the end of this month with roasted pig in the menu (not roasted crocodile).

The birthday girl with friends


In the afternoon,we also have the chance to enjoy some shopping and refreshing the body by eating ice cream. So how could i lose weight??

Interesting things

Today, the temperature reached 31 degrees and its very hot. I would say that i don't like this kind of weather its because i have sun allergy which causes skin irritation and headache. It was also sunny in Spain last week and i just choose to stay inside the hotel. While dirk and mutti were playing golf, there are some interesting things that caught my attention, look at the pictures below.



Flower Vases in the Hotel

The big round cheese


The chairs in the hotel lobby


The big pots