Surprise Visit

Today, my first cousins marites and margie visited us at home. They live in Freiburg and its been a long time since we saw each other. They attended the burial of margie's former mother in law in gengenbach, which is not that far from our place. Of course, we did made updates on each other and spent the rest of the afternoon laughing and joking. I'm happy that i have relatives here in this other side of the world.

Vandalism

As defined in wikepedia, vandalism is a conspicuous defacement or destruction of a structure, a symbol or anything else that goes against the will of the owner/governing body and usually constitutes a crime. Take for example the above train in Germany, when you first look at it as if it is an art design on the train.

But some irresponsible people vandalised the major transport system by means of spray painting. Graffiti problem costs Deutsche Bahn 50 million euro in 2005. They already adopt security measures to address this problem by installing cameras, networked video and application of transparent coating that provides a protection of lacquered and painted surfaces which also facilitates the removal of a broad range of graffiti.

Last Day in Vienna

We spent our last day in the austrian capital by visiting the SCS Shopping Center South. It is the second biggest shopping center in europe with 400 stores. Of course our very own Mall of Asia is bigger with 600 stores, nice restaurants, entertainment center overlooking manila bay. Before we go there, we agreed that we will not shop anymore because of our increasing heavy baggage.

But knowing myself with built-in shopping genes inside my body, i cannot resist the temptations of those shops offering big discounts. Probably, i am just human capable of breaking promises. So I ended up buying again discounted bags, blouses, coats, jewelries and other accessories.

We have a smooth trip from our hotel going to Vienna International Airport for our flight to Stuttgart. The flight was delayed due to some problem on the plane door. During the flight, there were some turbulences so our pilot decided to fly low and slow because of the bad weather condition brought about by the recent storm. Thanks GOD we are all fine and we arrived home safely close to midnight.

Vienna- Day 3

Today, dirk successfully accomplished his work as moderator and resource speaker for REGAL, the austrian magazine. It is the largest newspaper for food trade and food industry in Austria. It was held in Florido Tower on the 30th floor overlooking vienna. While dirk is working, tonette is shopping again. I did browse around the western part of vienna and bought a jeans jacket and some house decors. Lunchtime, i filled my stomach with chinese buffet at Asian Restaurant.

Vienna, Austria- Day 2

The weather is somehow returning to normal. The storm code name Emma had already left which causes lots of destruction in Germany and Austria. Yesterday evening, we decided to have dinner at a nearby russian restaurant which turned out to be a waste of money because the taste of the food was awful. Tonight, we settled in a chinese restaurant and it turned great.

Today, we visited two big shopping malls here in Vienna. Being an Esprit freak, dirk bought a nice coat for me. I have learned a lot from him when it comes to quality. Last week, he bought four jeans and some other stuff for me at Esprit stores in Budapest, Hungary.

I have now an increasing esprit collections (from head to foot items) from australia, hongkong, malaysia, sweden, holland, belgium, italy, austria, hungary,etc.and of course germany in which i am a platinum member. I think, the price quality relationship of esprit products are quite okay and it really lasts long. My daughters also like esprit, herbench and guess products. They also appreciated a hands-me-down items from me like bags, but not clothes because their sizes are XS, L, XL and XXXL and their shoe sizes range from 38 to 40 and i am size 37. Of course, i still have friends and relatives who are just happy to inherit some of my collectors items.

Vienna Sojourn

The weather here in the austrian capital is still not good for outside activities. Its still very much windy with some rains, so we just decided to visit the Castle Schönbrunn, one of the worlds heritage site. Its the famous and the biggest castle here in austria.

Its really fascinating how they were able to preserved and maintained the facades of the castle. Its structures, paintings and the golden furnishings were marvelous. Somehow the stormy weather did not dampened our spirits to enjoy the once in a lifetime cultural adventure here in Vienna.

Getting angry and hungry in Hungary

I am so excited for our plane trip to budapest only to be disappointed because dirk messed up his calendar schedule. We're already in stuttgart airport when we found out that there's no flight for budapest that day. It turned out that our flight schedule was march 26 instead of 27. Its good that there is a train about to leave in an hour going to the hungarian capital. From appenweier its approximately 14 hours going to budapest arriving there at midnight. During the loooong train trip, i was able to remove most of the split ends on my long hair to while away the time. Most of the stores and restaurants were already closed so we dont have dinner and just sleep with an empty stomach.


Aside from China, Hungary is the second former communist countries that we've visited. In the future we plan to visit as well other eastern european countries like Poland, Romania and Russia. The ruins of the past is still visible in these countries with communism as form of government before.

Being a cool mom, i never showed any negative reactions to dirk,we just laughed at the mistakes, with his brilliant mind, he already had the second option-the long train trip. At least, we arrived in good shape eventhough tired and hungry. I will forever be grateful to him for showing me the world. I still cannot believe that I've been to more than 40 countries in different continents.

Back to Hungary, we visited important landmarks, churches, museum, dined at best hungarian restaurants and most important my shopping spree. Dirk knows that vacation is not complete without tonette's shopping.

The only thing i dont like in Budapest is that some of the taxi drivers did took advantage of us being a tourist charging us so much even for a short trip.

We're now in Vienna, the capital of Austria. We arrived here in a stormy weather condition but that didnt stopped us from shopping for our needs in a nearby grocery store. We're going to stay here for the next four days.