Windmills

Kinderdijk in Holland was about an hour away from Antwerp - close enough for a day trip. It is one of the few places in the world where you can still take a picture of windmills while inside another windmill:


They were beautiful - check out the videos below:





Who would've thought back then that structures originally built for flood control would be preserved and become tourist spots later on.

p.s. even though it was very tempting, I purposely omitted any mention of Don Quixote de la Mancha, or the song Windmills of my Mind (by Grady Tate). This is the reason why this post on windmills is long on pictures and video, and short on text and stories.

Driving

If you can drive in Manila, you can drive pretty much anywhere. Nothing you see on the road will surprise you.

I drove through 3 countries last weekend (Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg), and although I received a short "orientation" on the European rules of the road (c/o Mav - who has a Belgian driver's license), I was still pretty surprised at several things:

1. Priority to the right - this was probably my biggest (and weirdest) shock. Active only in Belgium and Luxembourg, it basically means that the car on the right has absolute priority. Sounds pretty simple, but when you're driving along on a main road at 70 km/h, and some guy comes out from a side street on your right - you have to give way. Actually, you have no choice - they won't even slow down - they just assume you'll stop. The same rule applies for intersections - the guy on the right will just speed through the crossing without even looking. This rule alone causes an additional 250 traffic accidents a year - it is a very, very abnormal rule.

2. Diesel cars are quick - Diesel powered cars are supposed to be slow, noisy, and slow. I was driving (for the most part, at least) a diesel powered, automatic Volkswagen Golf TDI. It had a 1.8 (or is it 1.9 - I forgot) turbo diesel engine - and it was surprisingly quick. My family owns 2 diesel powered vehicles in the Philippines, one has a 2.7 liter engine (no turbo), and the other vehicle has a 2.9 liter turbo diesel. This Golf is a LOT quicker than any of our diesel cars, heck it was even quicker than my 1.6 liter gasoline car. I felt like I was driving something with a 2 liter gasoline engine, but with lot more torque. Astonishing - I wouldn't mind having one of these in Manila.

3. Speed limits - these are strictly enforced, there are speed cameras everywhere - 50 km/h in the city, 70 km/h on "secondary main roads," and 120 km/h on the motorway. I understood this to mean that you can drive below this limit, but not exceed it. I was wrong. It actually means that you should maintain your speed at EXACTLY this limit. Aggressive Belgian drivers will get impatient and tailgate if you run at 48 km/h in a 50 km/h zone.

4. Flashing headlights - back at home, if you flash your headlights at someone, it means "get the hell out of the way, I am coming through." Here, it is exactly the opposite - flashing your headlights at someone means "go ahead, and be quick about it!"

5. Parking and narrow streets - you cannot imagine how tight parking spaces are here. They are very, very tight - after parking, it is almost impossible to open any of the doors in any reasonable way. You have to be extremely thin to get out. Streets are also impossibly narrow - it is stupid to drive anything larger than a Honda Jazz in the city.

6. Bicycles are like cars - bicycles, especially in Holland, have the same rights as cars. This means that if they appear on your right, you have to give way. If you need to overtake, it is like overtaking a car - you have to patiently wait behind the rider and only go for it when the opposite lane is free. It doesn't matter if you have enough space - you give bicycles the same space as you would a car.

7. Giving way to pedestrians - this is obvious, you have to stop at all pedestrian crossings to give way to the people trying to cross the street. Sounds simple enough - but theory is very different from practice. Since we don't do this in Manila (we actually use pedestrians to "block" other cars, so that we can go and take their lane), I instinctively don't give way. Mav has to constantly remind me to stop. It is really more difficult than it sounds.

8. Traffic lights - the traffic light on your right is the one that applies to you. It is a very simple rule - however, there are some large intersections with 5 (or more) traffic lights. What do you do when there are 3 lights to your right, and one of them turns green? Do you go? To be safe, what I do is I just stop - if the car behind me gets irritated and honks his horn, that's my signal to go. Hehehe.

9. Signal lights - if you're changing lanes, you have to use your signal light. This is to inform the car on your left/right that you are changing, and that he should give way - and they do give way. In the Philippines, its the exact opposite. If you use your signal light, the car on your left/right will speed up to close the lane. I never use signal lights in the Philippines when changing lanes - this is because to be able to effectively change lanes, you have to "surprise" the guy next to you.

There are obviously more rules - like you should only overtake trams on the left (or is it on the right - I forget, sorry), you should always use your signal light when exiting roundabouts (some don't look like roundabouts at all), you should always keep right on motorways and only use the left lane for overtaking, etc. Also, Belgians are not exactly model motorists - on the motorway, I was probably the only one following the speed limit.

I always joke that in the Philippines, traffic rules (including stop lights) are just "suggestions" - you should follow them, but its more common for motorists to ignore them. In fact, some motorists will even get mad at you if you decide follow the rules - I frequently get honked from behind when I stop at a red light in Manila.

When you drive in the Philippines, you automatically assume that all the other motorists on the road are bumbling idiots, incapable of understanding or following road rules and having absolutely no common sense. This means that late at night, you still slow down on every intersection, even if stoplight says green - just in case some idiot tries to beat the red light. It also means that you honk at cars backing up from parking spaces, because you assume that they are not looking and might back into you.

Here, the basic driving premise is exactly the opposite - you assume that all motorists WILL FOLLOW the rules. This means that they will stop when they have to, they will give way when you have the right of way, they will look first before exiting a parking slot, and they will stay on the right and overtake only on the left.

Some people say if you grew up driving in Manila, nothing you see on the road will surprise you. This is wrong - I was actually surprised that people DO follow traffic rules (no matter how strange these rules are) in other countries.

Bier, bier, bier!!!

Beer - the nectar of the gods.

"If you like beer, you will love Belgium. If you don't like beer, you will learn to like it once you visit Belgium."

That's what the guidebook said - and I agree wholeheartedly. This book also had a special section which dealt with the different kinds of Belgian beers. I read almost every line twice - this was my very short "beer education":

The first thing that really shocked me about beer is that you really have to use the proper glass for each one. I initially thought this was just a load of BS - but there really is a huge difference in taste. For example, I tried pouring half a bottle of Chimay Blue (which incidentally is my favorite) into an ordinary glass. I then poured the remaining half into the proper chalice-shaped glass - the difference in taste was HUGE!

I think its because of the way the bubbles (or "head") forms - using the proper glass forces it to give off the correct aroma, which accounts for the big difference in taste.

Beer shopping is difficult, there are so many kinds of Belgian beers available that you will just go crazy trying to pick the "correct" ones.


Fortunately, I had a shopping list - courtesy of a Belgian officemate who was also a beer nut. I looked for, and bought, every beer on the list.


I'll post comments about the beers I liked in a seperate entry - I must have tried 2 dozen different kinds.

Cheers!

Warsaw pictures

I was talking to a Polish guy once when I was going around Poland - when he heard that I was staying in Warsaw, his first comment was: "What are you doing in that ugly city?"

Here are some pictures I took of the city last year - tell me if you think its ugly:






Nice, eh?

Warsaw Rising Museum

Museums are not really on the top of my "to see" list. When I went to Amsterdam, I did not visit the Van Gogh museum; when I went to Paris, I did not go inside the Louvre. I know - this is sacrilege for most, but to each his own I guess.

It is quite surprising then that last weekend, I went to visit the Warsaw Rising Museum. Opened in 2004, it chronicles in full multimedia glory the Warsaw revolt of 1944. Before this musuem was opened, the history of the Warsaw revolt (or "Warsaw Rising") was a confusing and unorganized mess. Many of the historical facts surrounding this event were hidden or distorted, mainly due to the fact that Poland was under communist rule until 1989.

It was an amazing experience. Not only was it the most modern musuem I've been to (admittedly, I haven't been to too many museums in my life), it also shows the rich (and tragic) history of this great city. I personally prefer museums that tell an interesting story - the history of a people or place, how people lived and died back then, what weapons they used, how medieval people used partly-eaten corn cobs before the invention of toilet paper - it is certainly more interesting (to me at least) than places which just collect various pieces of art or sculpture.

A Polish friend of mine once told me that the reason why Warsaw has been destroyed so many times during its history was because the Polish people would rather fight back than surrender.
This is unlike, for example, Brussels or Paris - they never fought back, so these cities are still pretty much in tact. In fact, the English word "surrender" came from the French - the original word is "surrendre."

Not surrendering is evident even in the logo of the museum - the letters "P" and "W" shaped like an anchor (seen above) - stands for "Polska walcząca," meaning "Poland Fights."

The Warsaw Uprising lasted for 3 months (August 1, 1944 to October 2, 1944) - they were battling the Nazi Germany occupation of Poland during World War 2 - the same war which resulted in the decimation of Poland's (and much of Europe's) Jewish population. You can probably read about this whole thing on the internet, so I am not going into it with too much detail. Basically, the Germans destroyed about 85% of the city - and they did this systematically. They brought in demolition experts, these guys walked around the city block by block, and marked every building with chalk - indicating the "best" way to demolish it (i.e. how much explosive to use, where to place these explosives, etc.). End result was that after the Germans left, the city was literally flattened - not a single building remained.

Poland's biggest ally during this time (the Russians) stood at the border, and basically just watched the destruction of Warsaw happen. After the Germans systematically destroyed everything, they left Warsaw. The Russians then came, and stole what was left.

The Russians then built a large tower in the center of the city (now called the "Palace of Culture and Science") - it was Stalin's "gift" to the Polish people, a symbol of Communism, and Russia's influence over this area of the world. Since there were no buildings left in the city when this was built, it was a stunning sight. I saw pictures of a flat Warsaw with only a huge tower existing in the middle - WOW! Especially if you compare this to how it looks now:


It's still the tallest building in Warsaw, and (understandably), the Polish people absolutely hate it. I went to a meeting at our client's office a month ago - the meeting room had windows facing this tower. I commented to my Polish client that their office had a "nice" view. He said that actually, it was a "terrible" view.

There is even a joke that at the top of this tower is the best view of Warsaw. This is the best view because it is the only view that doesn't include the tower itself!

A visit to any place is uninteresting if you don't know its history. A visit to the Warsaw Rising Museum is definitely a must - if you ever come to Warsaw, you should go here first. It sort of puts things in the proper perspective.

The picture above came from the official Warsaw Rising Museum website.

Sick

I haven't been feeling well for the past few days - too much partying I guess. I took 1/2 a day off from work last Wednesday (after we got back from Wisla) - slept for about 16 hours, waking up every 4 hours to drink 2 500mg Paracetamol tablets at a time. That helped - a bit.

The problem is with my tonsils (which translates literally to "little tongue" in Polish). Once or twice a year they get infected, and when things don't go so well, I will start getting a 40-41 deg C fever coupled with a nasty visit to the emergency room. When I went to the doctor with this problem in Manila early last year, he said that the next time I get a tonsil infection, he will have to cut it off.

That course of action didn't sound so pleasant, so the next time it happened (sometime late last year), I avoided the doctor like the plague.

Falling ill in a foreign land is not easy - the tricky part really is finding an English speaking doctor. If I don't find one, I would have to learn how to say "don't you dare cut off my little tongue!" in Polish. It's risky, since if you mispronounce something, the meaning totally changes, and who knows what they'll do.

Mispronouncing foreign words can get you in a lot of trouble. An Italian colleague here once tried to say "Who is that pretty girl?" in Polish. It turns out that the Polish word for "pretty" is very similar to the Polish word that means "easy." Guess which word he pronounced, and how much trouble that got him into, hehehe.

If I don't find an English speaking MD, I guess I will just have to cross my fingers and say again and again in English: "No cut, no cut!!!!"

Luckily, I did find an English speaking doctor. She was very good - in fact, she prescribed 7 different kinds of medicine:


The last medicine she prescribed was "Orofar," which is a lozenge - something like an industrial strength version of Strepsils. Anyway, when she was trying to ask me if I was already taking a lozenge, she didn't know how to say it in English. She grabbed her dictionary, looked for the right term, and exclaimed: "do you have anything to suck?" Hahahaha....even if I understood what she meant perfectly, I still couldn't help but laugh out loud.

She then prescribed a pretty strong antibiotic - so I had to ask her the question: "Can I take alcohol?" She said "yes, but not too much." Then she asked me if I smoked. I said "yes, I do." She said "you should stop." I said "I know!"

She laughed. I guess it was her revenge.

As expected, her handwriting was terrible:


I guess doctors all over the world have nasty penmanship. She's very good though, I feel a lot better already.

As a final note, the most surprising thing about this ordeal is how expensive medicines are back at home. I bought the exact same antibiotics in Manila a year ago, and they cost more than twice as much. I guess 50% of the price we pay for medicines go to our doctor's "commissions," in the form of "free" trips abroad, medical "seminars" in fancy hotels and restaurants, and other nasty "perks." Of course, its not easy - they have to meet their respective "quotas," otherwise they get nothing. Its sick (no pun intended) I know - I personally think we should hate them more than lawyers or politicians.

To avoid a similar predicament, always remember to drink your vitamins, go to bed early, and don't get sick!

Going out in Warsaw

Warsaw at night is a true party town - the city is packed full of restaurants, pubs, and clubs - many open until the wee hours of the morning. It is also surprisingly pretty safe, even at night - as long as you don't wander off to the more "seedy" parts of the city.

What they don't have, however, is a central party area. Clubs are pretty spread out across the city - this essentially means that a night of pub/club crawling will involve more than just a few taxi rides.

In Manila (and in my hometown as well), there is essentially just one crowd of partygoers. Everybody knows everybody else, and people mostly flock to just one club at any given time time - whichever place is "hot" for the month.

I've been to quite a few clubs here in Warsaw, and it certainly is not the same situation. Different "kinds" of people (i.e. one club would have mostly students, another one would have mostly expats in their 50s trying to pick up girls half their age, another one would be full of B-list celebrities, etc.) flock to different kinds of clubs. There's even an Irish pub where the Irish community hangs out in ("Bradley's"), and an Irish pub where the tourists hang out in (aptly called "Irish Pub").

Come to any of these clubs late (like 11pm-12am), and you'll find a mean looking doorman "filtering" out guests. If he doesn't like your face, or how you're dressed, you won't get in. I've seen girls get turned away because they were not "pretty enough." Foreigners can usually get in without a problem - so thats good news for me.

Since women here in Warsaw are generally a good looking bunch (tall, slim, sharp, eastern-european features), the "filtered" girls in certain clubs are just true bombshells. I'm not going to try and describe them, or how its like to get in - you will just have to come here and see for yourself.

To give you a small taste, I compiled a couple of the most popular songs played in the local clubs. Please take note that most of these videos are not safe for work (NSFW). I believe they'd even be illegal on Philippine TV. Local channels, however, show even "stronger" stuff - that's Europe for you I suppose.

Holly Dolly - Dolly Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffqy8U4ceFA

Fedde Le Grand - Put Your Hands Up For Detroit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUVkZkqKmXQ

Alex Gaudino feat. Crystal Waters - Destination Calabria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWu-e6B2AJs&mode=user&search=

Camille Jones Vs Fedde Le Grand : The Creeps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBBdt3NWHHM&mode=user&search=

DADA Ft Sandy Rivera & Trix - Lollipop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPe16KLGyzg

Bodyrox feat Luciana - Yeah Yeah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd0GM2bHhXE

Benny Benassi - Satisfaction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odgjQa7SxIY

Guess which one is my favorite? Hehehe....

My Wisła weekend

I went to the mountains this weekend, in a place called "Wisła." This is a town up in the Polish mountains, about 400kms south of Warsaw. It's a small town best known for the champion Polish ski jumper Adam Małysz - you'll see his pictures everywhere here. It was supposed to be a skiing trip, however, since I have a bad knee injury (my left ACL is gone, for those who are familiar about these things) - and I was advised to stay away from the slopes.

Disappointing, I know - a once in a lifetime opportunity, gone. Oh well, I don't care too much about skiing anyway - its 30 minutes of lining up to get on the ski lift, and 30 seconds of going down the slope. I also didn't want to spend extra to buy/rent all that equipment (I was supposed to buy ski pants, ski jacket and gloves, and rent ski boots, skis and those sticks you use to poke the snow while you slide down). The conditions weren't good as well, it was sunny, and the snow was beginning to melt - turning it into a slippery mush.

Who am I kidding? I was (and still am) extremely disappointed. Maybe I'll go back this weekend, while there is still some snow, and try it out.

The other unfortunate thing is that I forgot to bring my camera. How dumb. How very, very dumb - especially since I bring my camera everyday to the office and back. How can I forget to bring it on this once-in-a-lifetime trip? Oh well.

The journey started out interesting enough - we left Warsaw at 8am, and immediately people started drinking on the bus. And when I say drinking, I don't mean having a couple of sips of beer. I mean heavy drinking. Vodka. Shots of it. Lots and lots of shots. There was also lots of singing, shouting, dancing, and more shots. The trip lasted 6 1/2 hours, it was 6 1/2 hours of heavy, heavy drinking.

This was difficult - not only because it started at 8am in the morning. The main problem is that it was a no smoking bus, and it didn't have a bathroom. The bus stopped for a bathroom break every 2 hours, and immediately a long line would form outside the gas station bathroom. Women would continue to line up, men would get impatient and head for the trees. Ahh, being male has lots of advantages.

All of this - coupled with the fact that I got home at 3am the previous night from vodka drinking at a friends house - guaranteed a pretty interesting trip. 6 1/2 hours zipped by so quickly, I didn't even notice that we were there already.

As soon as we got to the hotel, we checked in and hit the pub. More drinking.

It was a Sunday, and because I was a good Catholic, I decided to go to mass. I hopped out of the pub at 7pm and started walking, looking for the Church. It was pitch black, I had no map, it was freezing cold and raining hard. After walking around lost for about 5 kms along a narrow highway, I decided to head back - there was no way I could find that Church in these conditions.

Apparently, Wisła is one of those few towns in Catholic Poland where there are more Protestants than Catholics - so finding the right church was more difficult than I first expected. Reminded me of Sagada back at home. Sagada minus the Marijuana.

The next day, we were blessed with warm weather (10 deg C - yes that's very warm) and lots of sunlight. A small group of people were going for a walk, and they invited me to go along with them. Since I thought it was a shame to waste such a nice day indoors, I decided to go with them.

15 kms and 2 hours later, I regretted this decision. I was trying to hail a taxi - but in a place where there are only 11,000 people, taxis are not very popular. My feet hurt - I needed a beer. Badly.

I got a vodka instead. And sleep. We played poker later that night, and I lost badly.

The next day, we headed home.

It might not seem like I had fun, but I actually had a blast. I got to meet many different people from all over Europe (about 98% of them were from Poland though - one guy was from Spain) and regaled them with stories about Balut, Sisig, and how in our professional basketball league, we have 1 tournament a year where imports are not allowed (a.k.a the PBA All-Filipino conference). I learned different Polish and Spanish bad words, and found out (rather strangely) that there is no Filipino word for “Cheers!” (I explained that this was because we traditionally drink using the tagay method – so people generally don’t have one drink each to say “Cheers” with).

All in all, it was great fun. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

Moules, frites, and bier

The capital city of Belgium has 3 often-used names: Brussels (English), Bruxelles (French) and Brussel (Dutch). This city of 1 million people is also rightly famous for 3 things:

1. Moules - mussels to us English-speaking folk. The best place to have it is the a restaurant called Chez Leon, and the house specialty involves cooking them in white wine. They were very good, and the best thing is that we didn't have to worry about red tide.

2. Frites - when some pissed-off Americans started calling French Fries "Freedom Fries," in retaliation for France's strong opposition to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, some people in France commented that frites actually originated in Belgium. Pictured above is Maison Antoine, which means "get your fries here" in French. They serve the best fries in the world, 10x better than the ones Mcdonald's serves, and 100x better than the crap Jollibee dishes out.

They are cut thickly and served in a paper cone, topped with mayonnaise. You can also get them with a bunch of other sauces, like cranberry and strawberry (I am making imbento here of course - but I do remember seeing some strange sauces on the menu).

3. Bier - ahh beer. You just have to love a country that has more than 1,000 kinds of beer. They're also really anal about it - each one has its own special glass, and each one has to be served at specific temperature - depending on the type. In Manila, you're lucky if you get your beer cold, and if you want a glass and a bucket of ice ("que horror - you drink your beer with ice?!?!?")- you have to ask for one.

Above are 8 different kinds of Belgian beer. Out of these 8, guess which one I tried first? Thats right - the one with the most alchohol content. The left-most one said on the label that it was the "strongest beer in Belgium" - with 12% alchohol. It was terrible - worst beer I ever had. I still finished it though - sayang kasi eh.

"Pope, what about Belgian chocolates?" Well, yes they are also particularly good - there is actually a chocolate shop in almost every corner in this city. However, I don't know the French word for chocolate, so I am ending my post with beer.

I'm going back to Brussels next month - I can't wait.