Adventure Accounting

I know I've been lacking posts this year. I'll do my best to catch up. This is a backlog posts related to my Europe 2013 adventure. I am not a visa officer nor a visa agent. This post comes from my own personal experience. My Philippine passport wants to go to Europe again. Time to brace myself for another visa application. Despite the success of my Korean Visa and Japan Visa application, I still had butterflies when I applied for my second Schengen visa. I worried how my first visa application in the Italian embassy, which was denied, would factor in here. Although I was granted the Schengen visa in my second try, the denied application is still lodged in my records. For this Europe trip, I will be staying in Spain the longest, so I had to lodge my application in the Spain Embassy. VFS Global handles the visa applications, they charge a fee for that. The website is quite comprehensive. Take some time reading the details in the website. http://www.vfsgloba...

It has been almost nine months since I got back from my 24-day solo DIY Europe trip (this post is backdated) . The euphoria should’ve faded. But, every time I write another Europe post, I can still feel the happiness. The euphoria wouldn’t die. Everytime I come back from a trip, my “bubble of happy thoughts” gets bigger. After this trip, I’ve accumulated happy thought bubbles that I would rekindle forever. Random things remind me of random memories that occurred during my trip. As I blog my adventures, I am amazed that it really happened . Why am I feeling so victorious?  This is one trip I’ve been aching to do forthe longest time . Now I finally did it. An idea was translated to numbers,saved and tracked in an excel spreadsheet , plotted and planned in another workbook then blessed with a stamp in my passport. After all the saving and planning, these finally translated into an actual experience, imprinted in my mind, immortalized in pictures. The Colosseum in Rom...

Traveling in Europe is expensive; the basic necessities alone can take you months or years to save . Don’t forget to budget some for shopping. What is Europe without shopping? I did not have the budget to shop for the high-end brands because I still can’t grasp the full concept of having designer bags anyway. I’m more in shopping in stores which are not yet in the Philippines concept. If you are a fan of Louis Vuitton and the like, then shopping will be a serious part of your agenda.  The long line in an LV store in Paris.

Staying in hostels is a really good option if you are traveling alone. I loved the freedom of solo travel at day. After everything, it is good to have a chat with a fellow travel enthusiast at night. Hostels are also reasonably priced and they have the basic facilities necessary for travel survival. It was quite an adjustment for me at first. I have my own room so I am used to having my own territory. From that, to sharing a room with a bunch of strangers for three weeks. I know it is a crazy idea for some people - sharing a room with strangers - but since I decided to do Europe alone on a budget , this is a practical option for me. Bunk beds Manners were taught since kindergarten but sometimes, some people forget the basic manners when they travel. There is an unspoken and unwritten (or sometimes written) rule about hosteling etiquette but don't expect that your roommates with adhere to them. The Problem The Fix Snoring roommates Mp3 pl...

Most people spend a lot of time dreaming and planning how to get there. As I stated at the beginning of this Europe Series , “A goal without a plan, is just a wish”. I spent and I still continue to spend a considerable amount of time reading books and blogs how to motivate myself and keep my vision, my dreams. How to get there. The plan was just a plan, not so long ago. But I was not prepared how to ease myself out of a dream. Most people dream about buying a house, a car or getting married and settling down and all that. Well, you live with that forever. This dream of mine took two years of saving and planning which took place for three weeks. So how do you ease yourself out of a dream? What do you do when you finally hit the ground? I can’t stay in my dream. It was still a cold morning. But I revered in the cold moment. My next morning will be warm (if not hot and humid). I dragged my luggage and myself to the tram station. I was fortunate enough to witness a canal g...

It was a scenic ride going back to Amsterdam. I had 3.5 hours to kill. Memories swirl my mind as I recalled what happened during the last three weeks. I landed in the Amsterdam Centraal Station with memories in tow . I located GVB’s building outside the station to purchase a day’s worth of pass. I was leaving in 18 hours. *sniff**sob*

Arriving In Paris I’ve heard and read a lot of horror stories about the pickpockets in Paris. As a solo traveler, I opted for the more costly option of booking the ParisShuttle to pick me up in Paris Orly Terminal and drop me off to the hostel for only €18. Their regular rate is €25 but I got a discount because I flew using Easyjet. Alternatively, Paris Orly Terminal has a train connecting the airport to the main line. But I didn’t want the hassle of reading maps while being alert with my luggage in a new city.   Getting Around You can buy a carnet of 10 tickets for €12,50. The carnet is valid in zone 1 only. There is also the Paris Visite Pass comes in two options: a pass valid for zones 1-3 or zones 1-5 which can be valid for 1-5 days.  Plan your itinerary in such a way that the adjoining areas can be reached by foot. You can use one ticket to go there and another one going back. Maps are useful. A pen would be a handy accessory. Don’t be afraid to use t...

Everybody knows that Paris is an expensive city. I had a difficult time choosing a hostel. Most hostels offering the basic necessities costs €35 a night, and it only cost me €25 a night in the other cities – well, except for my accommodation in Venice . Choosing an area to stay in Paris was difficult. Every traveler recommends a certain spot. But each city's corner is just near a metro stop so you are not really that far from anything. The hostel's rules

Well, here we are. The last day in Paris. I knew it was going to be a somewhat depressing day.To jumpstart my day, I headed out to Galleries Lafayette. It was a couple of blocks away from my hostel. It probably took me around 30 minutes to get to the mall on foot, but I didn’t mind walking. After all, it was my last morning in Paris. I wanted to inhale the neighborhood as much as I can. I reached the mall at a quarter past 10:00am and hurried to the Longchamp store. Longchamp became such a craze in the Philippines. I’ve been wanting to buy one online but I can’t distinguish the real one from the replica. I held off buying any LCs until I reached Paris.

It was another gloomy morning in Paris. The blue skies that I enjoyed in the other cities faded into the clouds. The sticky phlegm since Italy is more evident in my throat. It was one of those gloomy days. Perhaps its was the cold weather, perhaps it was the phlegm, or a big perhaps goes to the realization that it was my last full day in Paris. Tomorrow, I will head back to Amsterdam to spend the night. A day after, I’m flying back to Manila. My Europe trip is ending. The Plan: Musee D' Orsay/Rodin Museum/Napoleon's Tomb What Happened:  Basilique du Sacré-Cœur (Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris), Day Seine River Cruise, Mass, Tuileries again. I decided to skip the museums even though some are covered by the Paris Museum Pass. I wasn’t leaning towards an art appreciation day. It was a blah day in Europe. The morning began with an uphill walk to Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. Rode the metro and got off at Anvers station – which is just two stops away from my home b...

Most of the sights during my Europe trip consists of visiting architecturally “eye-candy” churches and museums. I love admiring their architecture and their details. But admiring them can be handful at times, and I crave the haven offered by nature - in the form of parks. The grandest garden I’ve been to was the Gardens of Marie Antoinette in Chateau de Versailles . After exiting the castle, I tried to look for a place to eat. There a decent restaurant but I didn’t really want to shell out €20-30 and eat for the next two hours. It was almost 1pm and I have to eat or my big intestine will eat my small intestine, if that is even possible.   Good thing they have a cafeteria to cater to the more budget conscious people like me. I got a salmon sandwich at €5 and a bottle of water for €1.50. Geez, the water was probably purified out of a golden purifier.   A bit of history as I understood it. France was ruled by a rich and powerful family using the taxpayers money to...

I learned about Chateau de Versailles before I learned how to multiply fractions. Not at school, but from this thick blue book entitled “How? Where? When? Why?”; I think it was a supplement book from of encyclopedias that we had.  Yeap, you read that word right – encyclopedia.There was the good ol' encyclopedia those days where you could lose your thoughts into. Probably what remained in my young mind when I read about Chateau de Versailles was that castles were real. The castles of the Disney cartoons were just...moving pictures. This picture in the book was real. In the far country of France in a continent called Europe, there lies Palace de Versailles. It didn't become my dream goal at that moment, but it was rather a pipe dream of sorts back then. Childhood and castles Today,Imma see a castle. Palace, castle, whatever, I'm gonna see it. I’ve seen Doge’s Palace in Venice and Palazzo de Vecchio in Florence but this is the one that palace that I was really...

I know, I know. A title can’t get any cornier than this one. Everyone has an ultimate dream destination. Mine is Europe. Where in Europe? The iconic Eiffel Tower. From the movie G.I. Joe I walked from Arc de Triomphe going to the Eiffel Tower. I still had a couple of hours of daylight left. My plan was to enjoy the view at the top at night.    "Paris. Somebody pinch me." Almost there.

I had only two planned metro rides that day. One going to the Louvre , and the other going back from the Eiffel Tower. I walked going to everywhere else. You can plan your day out so that you visit the sites that can reached by foot from another tourist spot. It was already past lunch time when I exited the Louvre . I think there is a cafe inside the museum but I wanted to eat in the cold outdoors. Weird, but the atmosphere outside the Louvre is just...inviting me to stay in the area a bit longer. A smaller version of Arc de Triomphe just across the Louvre.  I have gloomy cloudy skies in Paris. No crystal clear blue sky.

Boujour Paris! It was another cold morning in Paris. Although I was in one of the most beautiful cities on earth, I wasn’t exactly springing out of my bunk bed when I woke up. Felt like I was waking up to a morning going to Simbang Gabi – read: anlamig. I had a lazy morning. Took my time in eating my breakfast and getting ready to conquer Paris. The Louvre is also covered by the Paris Museum Pass. So I can skip the line to buy tickets. However, there is still the line to enter the museum – which can be quite long, if you enter the Pyramid entrance. If you want to skip the long lines, use the side entrance in Passage Richelieu. Get off at metro stop Palais-Royal Musee du Louvre. I’ve gotten hold of the metro by now. I still need to consult the map of course, but as long as you have your destination in mind, you’ll eventually figure out which trains to ride and which stops to get off. It is like solving a puzzle every time you  ride the metro – finding the easiest route from po...

Guided by a map, I walked to Jardin du Luxembourg or the Luxembourg Gardens. I’ve been using the map for less than a day and it seems like I’ve been using it for a week already – it was already tattered around the edges. Jardin du Luxembourg is a public park – no entrance fees, yay! I was doing self-portait shots when a lady jogger took pity of me. She stopped and offered to take my picture. And I thought that Parisians were snobs. But some are actually nice! Kagalang-galang pose

Replete withfood , I headed out walk to Cluny Museum a.k.a. National Museum of the Middle Ages. I’ve mentioned many times that I am not a fan of museums but heck, I am in Paris! Time to do some art appreciation. I bought the 4-day Paris Museum Pass for €50. You can get the pass at the airport and some shops mentioned in their website. How to use the Paris Museum Pass : Fill-out the name and “valid from” fields at the back of the pass. The date is the first day that you will use the pass. You will show your pass every time you enter a museum covered by the pass. It is important to plan the schedule of your museum visits. Some museums are open on some days of the month so it might be cheaper to get a 2-day pass if you visit some museums on their free days. For an art enthusiast, this is a good choice – you can just go back to the museum as you fancy.

I am taking such a long time sorting out which of my Paris pics to share. Rome was already difficult enough, but Paris is even more difficult. You can’t take a bad angle of this city. I enjoy looking at them again and again that I get lost in reminiscing, and I keep forgetting that I am sorting out pics for a blog entry. ============================================================== My alarm went off at 6:30am. I wanted to play snoozefest with it right away but I had to consider my roommates. It is annoying when someone plays snoozefest with her alarm in hostels. I took a peek outside the window. It was still dark, and there were water droplets in the window. Uh-oh, it was raining in Paris . I did my morning routine and then I was bright and sparkly, ready to conquer Paris. I stepped outside my hostel... and I stopped. It was cold, but still manageable. Right then, I knew I made the wrong decision of shipping a lot of my clothes back home whenI was in Rome . I needed them...

So I said I’ll compile a table of expenses on a per-city basis. Still workin’ on it. Rome is a huge city. Unlike the other cities in Italy, the tourist attractions are relatively more  spread out compared to other cities like Florence or Venice . If there is a transportation strike/rally, prepare to walk if you have to.    The metro can get very crowded. Be mindful of your belongings.I didn't try to take a picture of the metro because I was wary of those pickpockets.   Water is potable in the public water fountains. It is free and cool. The locals drink them. A public water fountain in front of the Colosseum

Rome has a lot to offer. I have a lot to share. My posts are scattered. I don’t know if I should blog on based on the day, the type of attraction or place. Nevertheless, I enjoy back-blogging because it allows me to always reminisce about my Europe trip.  Coming from the Vatican , I wanted to spend some time in the ruins before meeting up with a former colleague of my dad, who now works in Rome. Understandably, my parents need someone to check up on me, since I was traveling alone . Hahahaha. It would be good to converse in Filipino again.  When I got back to Termini station, the exhaustion got me. I’ll just visit the rest of the Roman Ruins next time. I walked back to my hostel to rest for a bit. No roommates, so I had a peaceful hour of rest. I headed out to the Colosseum (our set meeting place).  At day: At Dusk: