10.21.2006

Amsterdam Leg

Our first morning in Amsterdam, we awoke to breakfast at the Bastion Hotel. This is me and Peggy--one of the Production Assistants (the other one is Fides) on the tour--and they make life easier for us :)
I'm having some o' that!
Jolina aka "Marbles," poses with the breadbasket:
FM is confused as to what he should have; turns out he had a choice of the same-old same-old everyday for the next four days!
And here's the SPREAD...
Back to the room, where I have to iron the costumes... hey! that's a LOLLIPOP in my mouth and not a ciggy, ok... they have that for FREE at the front desk:

...whilst FM takes advantage of our FREE wi-fi access (little did we know, it would be our first and last taste of free internet!)
Lunch break: yup! Chinese takeout distributed to us by the production staff:
Leaving the Bastion Hotel for the venue (Pepsi Stage):
FM's pic of a parked bike at the hotel grounds:
Sign says: tow-away zone, I guess! (FM's pic, too!)
Our beloved sound engineer, Colby dela Calzada striking a pose (I loooove Colby's poses!)
Our spread backstage at the venue:
One of our hosts in Amsterdam, Ms Ana, shown here with her husband and children:

Paris to Amsterdam Pics from FM's cammy

Here we are upon our arrival at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris:
At the Air France lounge--which I'd already mentioned in an earlier post--they had a PSP at any gamer's disposal...
And I found a desktop which allowed me free internet access so I could keep in touch with my GT sisses :) although the keyboard was kinda different and drove me NUTS!
At the boarding area, here is the Magdangal family:
Ms Norma Japitana (Rico J's manager), Ms Betta Dans (Bituin's manager) and Bituin herself, making gestures at the cam!
At the luggage conveyor belt upon arrival at Schiphol Airport:
Reporting via text to my loved ones back home... Awww! (Sigh!)
Welcome to Amsterdam!

So glad to have finally landed--AND exited an airport--after a total 33 hours of flying around... we've gone MAD!
Our producer from Amsterdam, Mr Danny Sabio:
Danny took our pic...
On the bus to the hotel, me and Jolina's mom, Paulette:
Typical Dutch neighborhood we were going to:
At one of the many lunches hosted by our beloved Pinoys:
The GRAPES... but NOT of wrath! Har-har!

Bahrain to Paris

This is still at the lounge in Bahrain:
We headed for our next transfer, Paris from Bahrain, which took another six hours of flying.
At the Paris airport, we had to ride a bus from one terminal to another, and that bus kept going around in circles, as if the driver himself didn't know where to go either!
Somehow, we had our passports "entry stamped" at the Paris immigration, instead of at Amsterdam, heaven knows why, but that's how it goes!
Hardly anyone at the airport spoke English, so we had quite some difficulty finding our boarding gate.
We hung out for an hour at the Charles de Gaulle airpoort's Air france lounge and we "discovered" this great chocolate drink mix and some brown sugar all-natural cookies, which I stocked on for the rest of our trip.


(File under "how to save your per diem while on tour!" Hahahaha!)

Manila to Bahrain

Here we are on the plane to Bahrain (rhyming!):
I think this was the longest leg of our journey getting to our first stop, Amsterdam.
It took us 10 hours to get to Bahrain...
Then we had a five hour layover before heading for Paris.
Thing is, we hardly felt the loooong wait because the lounge was so comfy and we had free internet access as well. Yay!

Going to Europe :)

FM and I left Manila October 19, Thursday, at 3PM for a series of shows in Europe, specifically Amsterdam, Vienna, London and Milan. The Filipino tour, produced by Mr Vic Alcuaz' Star Events, is called Kamustahan '06 and the other performers are Ms Jolina Magdangal, Ms Bituin Escalante, Rico J Puno and Ms Nanette Inventor.

Here we are at the Gulf Air airport lounge:

With the ladies from our official travel agency:
This is Ms Fides, one of the staffers of Star Events:
FM transferring pics to his laptop:
Me and Jolina:
Walking to the departure area: