Wonders of the internet

The internet. Keeps people surfing online totally annonymous, you won't even know if you rubbed shoulders with your best webpal on the street if you've never met him/her before. This seems to add a great deal of courage to people and allows many to lead fantasy lives that they would only dream of and wouldn't have the courage to do.

Take Habbo for instance,
a good idea to meet friends but I think some have more than friendship in mind. I've never played habbo before but a female friend of mine recounted her experience to me.

She had been playing for sometime with a female character. Just for the fun of it, she changed her character to male and almost immediately attracted a horde of female characters who wants to talk to her.
My guess: they wish they had the guts to do that in real life. Otherwise why bother doing it virtually when you can do it in reality?

Excerpt 2

Day 4: Venice

Cut the chase and to the point, I'm just bringing out an incident I met that night in Venice.

Quiet streets, little alleys, romantic yes, but not good to get lost in the middle of the night. (Getting lost in Venice in the day is ok, I do that most of the time, can still find my way back eventually, not at night).

While crossing a bridge near the accomodation, a toddler from the family in front of us fell on the steps, it was rather dark so I didn't reali see what happened. But she was definitely wailing a minute after that fall.
Well, kids fall. Its common, nothing to worry, just comfort her and it will be fine. Or so everybody thought. Until she got up...
Her face was covered in blood. There wasn't anything jutting out from the steps of the bridge. Her clothes are bloodied, her mother's hands and the father was obviously shocked. Thankfully there was a nurse around who happen to be going in the same direction. The girl needed stitches.

Advice for travellers: Need a good map. The streets are all over the place and sometimes the locals even have to guess where it is at. San Marco didn't flood while we were there but it certainly looked like it was going to around the waterway near the Doge's Palace.
& lastly, train ur bladder. Toilets are difficult to find and there aren't many public toilets around.

Italian trip Excerpt 1

Day 3, Roma

Current position: Roma Termini, platform/binario 1. Eurostar departing 10.55am for Venice.

Taking the Eurostar direct to Venice. Though its a direct trip there, it still takes around 4 hours 40minutes to get there. Train would be making a few stops along the way passing by Firenze (Florence, would have stopped here if the trip was longer).

Visted the Vatican City yesterday and spent a day at the Museums. St. Peter's Basilica was magnificent, the carvings, the architecture, the square outside, the statues; all these were just a hint of what to expect inside the museums. Despite the sweltering heat outside, the basilica felt extremely cool (a result of the large amt of marble around?).

Ok enough of the tour guide stuff. Now for a personal touch...

The requirements of the Vatican city insists that visitors (men/ladies) should not bare their shoulders and the area above their knees within the Vatican. The amount of visitors inside made it highly difficult to enforce this, so bare shoulders, shorts, caps, we have it all. The guards... well, they seem to lost control. You can check the visitors when they first enter and the guys can change from long pants to shorts (detachable mah! the wonders of zippers). Hahaa!

Even in areas where photography was not allowed and silence was supposed to be observed; reality was far from it. Flashlights in the Sistine chapel. There was so much people in the there that one literally had to rub shoulders with strangers to get to the other end of the chapel.
For most of the journey, there weren't any seats in sight. So for those planning on a holiday and a visit there. Be prepared to walk, & I really mean walk.
The crowd, the exhaustion of walking for an entire day, I almost came down with asthma at the end of the day.
Went back took a short nap after a bath and almost missed dinner again.

Till them ciow better get some rest, got quite a lot of distance to cover when we reach Venice. I still don't know exactly how to get to the residence. BTW, did you know we drank a lot of spring water. Piping all over Rome carry water from the hills to the city, as long as you see a flowing tap around even on the streets you can drink from it (unless there's a sign that says otherwise).

The power of words & of language

Its amazing what a simple word can do. Spending an entire week or so in Rome surrounded with menus I hardly understand and constantly bombarded with numerous Italian road names and the notoriously difficult to navigate Venitian alleys and waterways; the pleasure of hearding a familar accent could not be overemphasized.

This incident happened as I was about to leave Rome's Leonardo Da Vinci Aeroporte (also known as Fumicino Airport, hence FCO). An Asian manager of the airline company was standing nearby and rendered the necessary assistance to get us to the gate (took us an hour to get there because of the incredible queue at the customs).
The words went something like this, " Don't go wandering around the shops, you wouldn't get to your gate on time. The customs 'jin gao tu' ".

It may seem ridiculous but hearding the three words "jin gao tu" was very comforting especially in a foreign land. It was meant to be negative, but it had an opposite effect on me instead.
*Sigh*
The power of words & language.