My new home on the Web

After eight years, this marks my very last post on Blogger. Fun as it's been, it's time for new, brighter and better things.

Please join me at my new home on the Web: www.currystrumpet.com.

I'm equal parts relieved, nervous and excited. But most of all I hope to see you all on the other side!

Happy news for Currystrumpet

I'm thisclose to accomplishing something I set out to do late last year: bring this blog to a new and better home on the Web.

It's more than just a new look. I've been working on it with some pretty talented people and I'm just counting the hours until it's ready. It was stressful at first, and things really came to a head late last week. Only when I saw that everything was finally coming together did I allow myself to get excited at last. Now I am really excited!

Currystrumpet will move to its new home very soon. I'll park my Italy posts for now, and pick up over there. Stay tuned... and I hope to see you on the other side! 

My own private Venice

Venice? Private? Hah. With 20 million visitors a year, you can't possibly hope to feel like you have this eternally beautiful city all to yourself. 

But you can try. Because while the sights you share with countless, faceless others are truly stunning, they are just easy pickings.

And while the Venice of the Grand Canal, of the Doge's Palace, the Venice of the Piazza and Basilica San Marco is as beautiful and evocative of a splendid past as anything you've ever seen...

... it is the Venice of the narrow side streets that is the most special, because it is the Venice that will become your own. 

Thankfully, the city provides no shortage of these small, winding alleys to get lost in. And I was happy to share my own private Venice with the love of my life, and with one of my dearest friends (and the love of her life!). 

Far away from the grand piazzas and palaces, and close to sunset, after the hordes of day trippers have gone home, is the best way to find your own private Venice. This is what mine looks like.

Koper on the coast

After the Grand Prix in Maribor, we traveled with the Glee Club for the rest of their time in Slovenia. This meant formally inducting our husbands into the Maleta (Suitcase) Club, a grueling task that they both met head on (wagas na pag-ibig ito!)...

getting to ride the tour bus, sit up front a.k.a. "First Class", and hear daily announcements being read out from an iPad (oh, how times have changed)... 

—and one of the best parts: getting to visit places that we normally would not go ourselves. One such place was the tiny town of Klanec, nestled among gorgeous green hills, where we spent two nights in a Franciscan monastery... 

... and the harbor town of Koper on the Adriatic Sea, wedged between Italy and Croatia. 

While the kids rehearsed for their evening concert...

... we were left free to explore this pretty little town.

Breathtaking Bled

Apart from the center of Maribor, I didn't see much of Slovenia when I was there 12 years ago. Now, without rehearsals or performances on the agenda, I was thrilled to have the chance to find out what I had missed—starting with a day trip to Slovenia's famous Lake Bled. 

The bus to Bled leaves hourly from the Ljubljana central station, and the trip takes about an hour and 15 minutes. Once we got there, we decided to take the 5km stroll all the way around the lake, which, according to various travel guides, takes an hour to complete.

Any European estimate for walking time always needs to be multiplied by 2.5 for Pinoys. We walk slowly, have short legs, and like to take pictures. Faced with a fairy-tale lake that looks gorgeous from just about every angle, you can bet we took pictures. Lots of them.

Even the most Amsterdam-like of weather (cold, cloudy and raining) can't do much to diminish the serene beauty of Lake Bled.



The tiny island in the center of the lake houses the Church of the Assumption. The way to get there is via a traditional rowboat called a pletna, but we didn't see any boatmen plying their trade that day.



I always have to tip my hat to cleanliness in a tourist area. In Bled, the lake and its surroundings are pristine. Look at that water!

I am not the biggest fan of walking, but the entire circuit around the lake was thoroughly enjoyable, especially with friends. Mimi and I were glad that the boys got along very well together.

One of the best things about traveling with another couple?

Having someone to take each other's couple photos in romantic locations like this. No more sticking your arm out for sad self-portraits!

I'd love to be here in the summertime, although I'm sure it's swamped. We got a small preview of what summer would look like at Lake Bled when the sun finally broke through the clouds in the late afternoon. Simply beautiful. 

When the clouds lifted, just like the curtains in a theater, to reveal the snowy Alps, we all just stopped and stared. Behind those mountains, by the way, is Austria. 

The Alps made a perfect, majestic backdrop to Bled Castle, Slovenia's oldest castle, perched on a hilltop. It was one of those fantastic sights that hardly looked real, like the clouds themselves were trickling down from the sky. But it was definitely real—and I'm happy to have seen it myself in Bled.

European Grand Prix for Choral Singing

After our Sunday morning stroll in (mostly deserted) Maribor, Mimi, Pete, Marlon and I ran into the Glee Club right outside Union Hall, where they were due for their soundcheck. 

After hugs were exchanged and manic shrieks faded away, we went into the holding room with them for last-minute instructions from Ma'am Malou, prayers and a huddle. I really have to give it to Ma'am, she was the picture of calm and purpose—exactly what a big group needed at a time like this.

It felt so strange to know what they were all feeling, but not actually be part of it—to be outside the circle looking in.

Then it was time for their 15-minute rehearsal, the only time choirs actually get to step inside the hall they compete in. Since the full repertoire is 25 minutes, the soundcheck was just about enough time to check the acoustics against a portion of each piece, and also if everyone can hear each other. I've been in halls where the audience enjoys a fantastic sound but you can't hear yourself at all, let alone the people next to you, and it's always a freaky feeling.

To me, they sounded amazing. Sparkling, fresh, warm, pino, with heart. And it's not just because I used to sing in this choir, okay. I think I've heard enough choirs to know.



Lunch followed at a park nearby. We got a chance to catch up with darling Leo, who was also with the Glee Club when we competed in the European Grand Prix in 2001. I can't believe he now has two Grand Prix competitions under his belt.

Then, back to Union Hall to claim our tickets and wait for the competition to begin. The event had been sold out for weeks. Slovenes love their choral music!

We got the nosebleed seats in the very last row, but asked to be moved. In hindsight, we should have just stayed here so we could see what the judges were writing down!

The organizers very kindly moved us to the upper left of the hall, where we unfurled our handy-dandy Philippine flag and got ready to cheer for our Glee Club. Can you say groupies?

Then the competition began.

Maribor on my mind

It's not an exaggeration to say we traveled from one end of Slovenia to the other during our four days there. After landing in Ljubljana, we rode a train northeast to Maribor for the Glee Club's competition, after which we took a bus to Koper on the southeast coast, right next to Italy and Croatia. 

map via Wikipedia

The train ride from Ljubljana to Maribor took about two hours. Slovenia is not very big and there's not a lot of distance to cover, but the train runs about as fast as those shopping mall kiddie trains. But that's nothing to take issue with, because the route shows off Slovenia's idyllic green landscape to stunning advantage.

Slovenia is a ridiculously gorgeous country. Marlon and I were tired after our early departure, but didn't dare nap. Not with the constant stream of gorgeousness outside: farmhouses, streams, cattle grazing freely...

... hills covered in green, meadows carpeted in flowers, trees in bloom.

After months of gray in Amsterdam, I could finally believe it was spring.

A stroll around Maribor, after the jump!

Butchers' Bridge in Ljubljana

I first saw love locks, or padlocks used as declarations of eternal love, in South Korea. The wire fence on the N'Seoul Tower overlooking the city has thousands of padlocks and bike chains affixed to it by Korean lovers. I thought it was an adorable idea (because I thought Koreans were adorable).

Then I started seeing padlocks on bridges everywhere: in Rome, Prague, Cologne and on the Pont des Arts in Paris. The novelty wore off, and I stopped looking for them and taking pictures.

That is, until I arrived in Ljubljana, Slovenia, the first stop on this year's Big Trip. In the pristine, charming center of this little gem of a city, one bridge made me sit up and take notice of love locks again. It's called Mesarski Most, or Butchers' Bridge.

At first glance it looks like a fairly small and ordinary bridge, marked only by the be-tailed bronze figure who looks like he's ah-ah-ah-ah-stayin' alive, stayin' alive. 

The ubiquitous padlocks are present, some of them hung rather unimaginatively along the steel ropes of the bridge. But as far as the art of love-locking is concerned, these are the low-hanging fruit. 

Look closer. Because these babies are where you want to lock your love. 

End of the road

Buon giorno from Marina di Carrara, Italy! We are in the apartment of Marlon's aunt Lorna and her Italian anarchist husband, Gino. (Yes. It's been interesting.) While Marlon watches Tita Lorna make siopao, pizza and focaccia alla stracchino (all from the same dough!), I'm catching up on a bit of blogging and downloading pictures from my camera.

It's the last day of our Big Trip. I can't believe we've been traveling for 17 days and now the journey has come to an end. With our stomachs full of good food and hard disk full of gorgeous photos, we're just about ready to go home. It may be the end of the road, but what a ride it has been.

Our itinerary expanded along with our waistlines. We made a few unplanned stops in Italy, like the tiny fortress-village of Monteriggioni...

and Monterosso al Mare in the famous Cinque Terre.

I can't be more thankful for these little surprises, and glad that we left ourselves enough free time to just go out and discover these places. Most of all I am thankful for a partner who is a wonderful companion both at home and on the road, and values travel as much as I do. 

There's lots to write about, so I'll get into turbo blogging mode when I return home. But till then, I will enjoy my last few hours in bella Italia. Ciao for now!