Sumptuous thanksgiving dinner

we had a nice thanksgiving dinner with our colleagues, ling and steve.
here's our feast!

yumyum turkey (but looks more like a big chicken--but super duper good!)

pumpkin pie

and our table (food you did not see (spinach with bacon, mashed potato with portuguese cheese and buttered corn! yum yum yum!)

Roma Italia!

We presented our paper, "A Case study about Youtube and Facebook as Social Media Tools in enhancing Student Centered Learning and Engagement" at the IJAS Conference in Rome, Italy.

Here are some sightseeing pics done before the conference started, but Rome was raining...but we still got nice pictures!

Real authentice capuccino!


Aria Opera

Spanish Steps

La Dolce Vita (Trevi Fountain)

Il Vittorio

Roman Forum

Colesseum

Naked!


Rome is such a beautiful city, and also one big museum!

Vatican City

Shots from the Vatican and inside St Peter's Basilica
My mom would love it here.
But I have a bad memory of this place as I got lost and I had to go back to the hotel alone. huhu

christmas blues

today when i was shopping, there was a short parade of zwarte piet giving away candies and treats. in the netherlands, their version of santa claus is called sinterklaas, which is an old bearded bishop riding a horse that supposedly came on a boat from spain, and together with him is his assistant called zwarte piet (black pete). its not politically correct in today's world, but usually piet is supposed to be black--so dutch people paint their faces all black (sootface) and he is is dressed in colorful page clothes.
i dont have the exact pictures from the parade, but here are some examples:



its nice that christmas is almost here, but i also felt a bit sad, because f is in spain for the weekend and i am alone now. I suddenly missed my family as I will be spending christmas here in europe.

well that is life.

so, feeling melancholic, i decided to get a small christmas tree for our flat.


advanced merry christmas everyone!

autumn weekend in germany

we went to visit f's family in ehningen, and also went to tubingen and stuttgart over the weekend. here are some pics.

the weirdly called "onion cake" but very very good!


castle in stuttgart

lake in tubingen

townhall in stuttgart

thirsty in bom jesus, braga, portugal

fort joao in varzim, portugal

beach in ofir, portugal (but water is too cold!)

coffee/breakfast in benavente, valladolid.

so here is our route:
ryan air from breda-nijmegen-dusseldord(wezze) airport to valladolid
road trip (hertz rent a car) from
valladolid - benavente spain to
chaves- vila real - braga - esposende - estella -ofir - povoa de varzim - vila do conde, portugal!
5 day road trip!
The cheapest, most tasty lunch we had was in vila real with rice, fish, roast chicken, 2 desserts and water for 2 people for 9 euros!

More images in Portugal

Ancient bridge built by Emperor Flavius in Chaves, Portugal

Case Mateus in Mateus, Portugal

Statue of Ferdinand Magellan, in his hometown in Sabrosa, Portugal

The view from Bom Jesus, Braga, Portugal