Letter from steph

"Dear Sammy Pig,

Greetings from Corfu in Greece. This is small, less well known island but still boasts of clear blue waters and clean beaches. I am borrowing this computer from a 65 year old man who retired 2 years ago and is now travelling all around the world. He is very friendly and has shared many of his experiences with me, including his photos. Anyway, I have time now to relax a little, until the boat leaves at night. So from where I am sitting, I can see the blue, rippling sea and the waves lapping up the shore. The cool wind brushes my hair. It is a nice, relaxing time. Yesterday, I had roast chicken and french fries, with a salad, for dinner. It was scrumptious ! Today´s breakfast was omelette and Greek pancakes which are just batter fried into ball like shapes and sprinkled with honey and cinnamon sugar, and orange juice too. For lunch I had a pita, which is flat, thick bread wrapped around pork, onions, fries and tomato ketchup. Quite nice too, better than I expected.

Anyway, we came to Corfu from Venice by ferry or some kind of cruise ship. Since we only had deck passage, we had no place to sleep i the night. It was too cold down at the decks so we secretly camped on the seats inside and had a fitful, but at least not a cold night of rest. The seats had too low a base at the back so our head had no support. Anyway, I´m just glad that journey is over. The next ferry ride will not be the same since we will get a cabin instead.

Venice is famous for its narrow winding streets , bridges connecting land and the surrounding murky waters everywhere. We saw all that , and explored the market place and shop houses for the famour murano glass. St Marc´s Square had the 4 bronze horses and the mosaics and sculptures on top. Oh, yeah, the gondeliers dressed in striped red and white or black and white stood around trying to get customers and we did see some gondolas on the waters.

Florence and Rome were other places I visited, the former famous for the art paintings and sculptures including David which I saw, and the latter for the Colossuem (not sure how to spell). YeAH; I enjoyed that, I could imagine the gladiators finding amidst the messy passageways on the floor of the Colossuem. I think wild animals were also let out among them for the amusement of spectators.

I will be going to Athens, Santorini and lastly Interlaken and Luzern in Switzerland next. Til then, take care


Cheers from abroad,
Steph"


Although I haven't got the slightest inkling about all the names of the rivers,and some of the cities she's talking about, it feels great to receive a letter back home. My brother and sister have been messaging back home almost everyday, or if not possible, alternate days. Sometimes we receive postcards from chris too, one for each destination he's been too, and because he's gone to so many different places, we have a huge thick stack of postcards. But although guys like him don't bother writing much on it (about 3 lines at best), we all get pretty excited receiving any piece of news from the both of them.

Going to church alone with my parents in the car feels a little stranger than it was. I've began to relish all those moments where there were five of us in the car, laughing and talking, criticizing on the music, playing silly games, making fun of our Dad and Mum. Things just doesn't feel the same without them. Its painful being the only child in the house. For one, there are less kids in the house for my Dad to irritate. Haha, so I guess his attention isn't as divided and stretched as compared to previous times when they were around. He comes to the room, sees what I'm doing, have chats with me about university courses, finds out how to watch his dvds on the computer, seeks me for help to type some of his lengthy emails, and there were times when the BOTH of us were actually skyping with Sijing. Ha! I believe, just like me, that my dad IS rather lonely at home too, and he needs people llike my mum and me to spice up his life! Perhaps, one redeeming thing about my siblings' absence at home, is that I have began to cherish the time spent with my parents, much more than before. No thanks to today's technological advances and the birth of the broadband and the computer, for the past few months, I have been neglecting the need to spend more meaningful me-time, and family time at home.

Right now, I'm glad to say that for the past few weeks I have been imposing a strict sense of discipline on myself, curbing the number of hours spent on the computer on weekdays. (: So, cheers to me!

Today we were supposed to go cycling, but I ended being a free part-time guitar teacher. Ha. Teaching can really be tough, I must say, and at times the virtue 'patience' really needs to be forced out of me, especailly when at those times the students aren't improving and refuse to listen to me! HAHA. But I love teaching. I like the challenge of imparting your knowledge about a certain skill/or thing or to in an understandable way to your students. Perhaps, I'll be a guitar teacher when I retire or something. Hahaha. Whoops, ok maybe not. With the wrinkly fingers and weak hands, ok, I cannot envisage such a thing ever happening. =X

Speaking of teaching, I'm intending to sign up for an intermediate guitar course after I finish work, for one month on a weekly basis. But, yeah, I've yet to find a suitable one that doesn't clash with my church camp. There's actually one in which fees will be charged much cheaper if I can find more people to bring along. So if anyone's interested, please inform the eager sloth here, yepps?