Emilio’s Blog

Thanks to all that dropped by to help me move out 2 weekends ago. My place is still a mess but at least we’re in our new appartment! Drop by if you don’t mind seeing a giant mess consisting of large boxes, unassembled furniture scattered cat fur (yay!).

You can see where the appartment is located using Google Maps.

Check out pics from the move in my friends section. Username/password: friends.

OK I’m a week overdue on the eng games update, but I figured that if I don’t mention it now I probaby never will.

If you’ve never heard of the engineering games, it’s a province-wide competition involving most of Quebec’s universities, usually sponsored by the Ordre des Ingénieurs du Quebec (OIQ) and Hydro-Quebec (among many others). They each send out a team of would-be engineers to create the best robot they can in order to go reach certain goals and/or meet certain criteria. This year, we had to build a robot that, once turned on, would cross a terrain consisting of a forest, a river and a hill, without external guidance of any sort. On top of it all, it had to collect as much water as possible as it crossed the river. Concordia’s robot made it through the forest, but never quite reached the river. No worries though; none of the robots managed to cross the whole terrain on their own.

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I stuck with bBlog until now because I wanted to give it a chance to prove its worth, but I realize now that it’ll never match Wordpress’ potential. And besides, I’m totally sick of having bots spam my comments. So goodbye bBlog and hello WordPress!

This change will take a couple of hours, so unless you’re stalking me, you won’t ever even read this message.

…But since you’re reading this, stop stalking me.

I can’t believe how fast 3 months flew by. I’m already back, it’s already winter, Christmas is just around the corner, it’s -15 degrees outside, the Habs are losing again (well most of the time), and I’m sick as a dog. No, it’s not malaria or the avian flu, as much as my mom would love to convince me of the contrary. Just a cold. Still, I’ve been a hermit for the past couple of days. I figured today I’d probably venture out of my house, call some friends up, do some last minute Christmas shopping.

ANYHOW, enough about me, more about my trip. Here’s a quick rundown of top 10 events of the EurAsia 2005 trip:

1. Near death experience burning down the bathroom of our treehouse, 100 meters up in a tree in a jungle in Laos.
2. Crashing a scooter on Ko Pha Ngnan, Thailand. Make that crashing it twice, in a 3 day span, and accumulating a fair amount of scratches and bruises as a result. Not to mention the damage I’ve caused…
3. Taking a ferry boat to the mainland across the Gulf of Thailand in very stormy waters, with puke flying everywhere, boat rocking madly, and Mike sleeping like a baby after having popped 2 Gravol pills next to my petrified self.
4. Bus ride from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Unpaved roads, potholes, dirt and dust, shady bus, breakdown after breakdown, broken bridges, 20 hour drive, corrupt border crossing officers; all these contributed to an agonizing yet memorable experience.
5. Hiking up the Swiss mountains, in Interlaken. Going from grass-grazing cows and swiss chalets to rugged cliffs and snowy banks at the top. Totally exhausting, but the most breathtaking views imaginable.
6. Cliff jumping in Ko Phi Phi, Thailand, from a height of 20 meters. Both stupid and exhilarating, it will make for a great story for years to come.
7. Biking in Vondelpark, Amsterdam, after taking magic mushrooms. A truly magical experience.
8. Riding a scooter through rain and freezing weather all the way to the craters of Mount Etna, an active volcano in Sicily.
9. Attending the Full Moon party in Ko Pha Ngna, Thailand. Thousands of party revelers dancing it out on the beach till the wee hours of the morning amidst fire jugglers and undercover Thai police officers.
10. Biking through the Angkor temples in total and complete darkness, after failing to find the right spot - or any spot for that matter - to see the sunset from. Scary but interesting nonetheless.

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Well, it’s definitely been a while. I haven’t updated this blog with any interesting tidbits for over a couple of months, so I figured the time had come.

The trip so far has been awesome. We landed in Paris, checked out one of the most expensive European cities practically for free thanks to our Alcan friends and their accommodations. We ate brie, baguettes, croissants, and all the expected goodies from the French capital. And I mustn’t forget the 2 euro wine. We saw the sights, hung out with some cool people, and moved straight along to Brussels.

Brussels, in a nutshell: smaller and cheaper and cozier version of Paris. Oh, and we mustn’t forget the much better beer. We only hung around there for a day and a half, got there pretty late and hurriedly booked the last spot at some shady pension. We moved on to a cooler hostel the next day, and met up with some chill Spaniards. Brussels has a beautiful city center, and I can’t speak enough about its beer; it totally blew my mind.

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