5-6-11 /Moscow-Singapore

When we landed at Moscow, the first good sign that the flight would be ok was that we docked next to an El-Al 767-300ER bound for Tel Aviv, and that automatically made me think of Simone, which by this point its been almost a week since I had seen her, and I already missed her sooo much!

The weather and people of Moscow that day was dreary. I would probably have to say that Moscow is one of my least favorite airports, up there with the airport at Philly. The airport seemed to be stuck in the cold war era of inefficiency, as all the passengers were forced to deplane and go through a russian security checkpoint, as if we haven't been through enough security checkpoints already.

There was only 1 person handling all the passengers that deplaned, even though there were 4 open counters, the lack of organization was frustrating, probably also because I was sweating and still recovering from an 11 hour flight. 

We finally got back on the plane, and we were sitting next to the same guy, we hoped he wouldn't be there... but oh well. I was pretty frustrated with the whole ordeal and my clothes were pretty damp with sweat, I was just hoping to get back on terra firma. One of the things that kept me going was hoping that things would be much better in Singapore, also looked forward to watching more movies. 

Will probably avoid flying into Moscow in the future if I can help it. 

So I settled into my seat hoping to watch a movie, but when I got back, my in-flight entertainment system was on the fritz, which made me pretty pissed. However I went and got a change of clothes and we got some food, and I felt a lot better. Had a steward reset my entertainment system and all was much better.

I started off the flight by watching “Black Swan” (I AM THE SWAN QUEEN!), then “The King's Speech” and finished up the flight with “The Mechanic” all pretty great movies. I can see why both “Black Swan” and “The King's Speech” won Oscars. Landed in Singapore in the early morning, after flying over Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Malaysia. I was able to see the glow of Cities in India, and the glow of Kuala Lumpur which is pretty huge. I also saw a group of clouds which I'm pretty sure were storm clouds because I saw flashes of light within them... either that ot it was explosions. Not sure, but Now onto Singapore!

Views from Singapore as we descended towards the airport, Airport must be on the outskirts of town as I remembered Singapore's lights being much more vibrant. Also sorry for the poor quality of the photos, I wish my camera could do most of what I have been seeing justice.

5-5-11/ Houston-Moscow

One of the first things I noticed was that one of the senior stewards looked like George Takei from behind. 

The service was pretty much just the same as I remembered, we had a mix stewards/stewardesses. It was interesting that some had different uniforms than others, I later learned that it was denote their ranks. But I was more concerned with the entertainment system.

As soon as we took off, I immediately turned to the “KrisWorld” entertainment system. I remembered that they used to have Super Nintendo games as one of the main entertainment sources, unfortunately this flight didn't, however, it had a kick ass music and movie selection. 

I was pretty bummed that my MP3 player wasn't working like I wish it was, but It was made all the better by the selection of music they had in the entertainment system. They had all sorts of artists, from pop to Electronica, and even foreign artists. I built a very dancy list, of Deadmau5, Paul van Dyk, and some pop songs from the Now series (which was on number 76/77 due to it being the British version of Now.) The movie selection was even better.

Plenty of the Newest movies out of theatres, I watched 2 movies on the flight, A french film called “De Vrais Mensonges”, and an American movie, “No Strings Attached”. Was a decent flight, but had a middle seat so it was a bit uncomfortable, there was some random guy that got the aisle seat, so he was a pretty lucky bastard... but it was ok, he was quiet, and when he got up to use the bathroom, we rushed to go before him lol, but it was pretty fun. 

We would land in Moscow on the 6^th of May, though I can't remember if I changed my watch to the local time or not. But after an 11 hour flight, I was glad to be off of the plane for a bit, but what would greet me was something I would rather not go through again.

The only picture I could get of Moscow before I left, too bad I couldn't get one of the El Al plane, i was photo blocked by a stewardess before I could get it

5-5-11/Orlando-Houston

Flew United/Continental, seat belts were a bit tight, but it was a short flight so that was nice, arrived at Houston at lunch at panda express, and switched terminals to the international section. Waited for a few hours and then boarded the plane. The plane we boarded was a Singapore Airlines 777-300ER, and it would be the same plane we would fly on from Houston to Singapore.

Travel Journal

So since I'm going to Indonesia for nearly 3 weeks, I figured I would keep a travel journal where I would post up pics and tell stories about my travels! I will probably not have steady internet through out the whole trip so many of my posts are probably going to be back dated. In order to keep the experiences fresh, I'm writing my experiences down on paper as things happen, as well as taking pictures which I hope to connect to my posts later! So hopefully you'll enjoy!

The REAL Football

Tonight, I was sitting at work, thinking of what I could possibly do to pass the time, Netflix doesn't work on the computer, I don't want to sit around and watch youtube videos, and then I thought to myself...

"I'm in a football watching mood..."

Luckily I remembered that FSU is lucky enough to get ESPN3, so I was able to find some UEFA Cup 2012 qualifying games. But wait you must be thinking to yourself, wait a minute, you just said football, don't you mean some NFL games, or College Football games?

To answer simply, NO.

What most Americans call Soccer, I call Football. However in day to day conversations with others I have to accent it so it sounds more like "Futbol" which I find pretty shite. Makes me wonder why most americans can't think like the rest of the world for a change, I mean everyone else calls it football, why can't Americans? So in any case, I'm bringing back the football or at least trying to, and live up to my Belgian heritage as I try to follow Standard de Liege, my family's (except for my uncle) team, and the Belgian National Team even tho we kinda suck lol, so I support Nederlands most of the time in international competitions because thats usually who the Indonesians support (and some Belgians), (despite the Dutch being the Indonesian colonial rulers for several centuries.) In any case, there's no such thing as soccer, you can call it "futbol" if you want, but it will always be the REAL football to the rest of the world.

Emblem of Standard de Liege, you'll probably see me wearing one of their jerseys.

Emblem of the Belgian National Team, I also own one of these Jerseys

Emblem of the Dutch National Team, looking forward to getting a jersey!

My Love of Musical Scores

So one thing that I love in movies is the Orchestral Scores that accompany whats going on in the movie. In my opinion the music is what gives a scene its emotion, or rather enhances it. For example, (depending on how often I've seen a movie) I can recite the lines of dialogue in time with the music. I guess that sounds weird, but I really can.  It seems that musical scores are only getting better as time goes on (even though theres a lot of musical overlap these days). Since there are too many movies with great soundtracks, I'm gonna add some of the greats of movie score composing and add a few movies as part of their credits...

Some of my favorite movie score composers...

James Horner - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Titanic, Avatar.

Jerry Goldsmith - Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), Star Trek: The Next Generation

(you may have noticed that the first are really star trek heavy, those are just the movies that I remember them being in... but if you check them out they have scored tonnes of movies!)

Hans Zimmer- The Lion King, Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Inception, The Last Samurai, Crimson Tide, The Prince of Egypt

 and an up-and-coming composer is

Michael Giacchino - Up, Star Trek (2009), The Incredibles, Ratatouille.


Now you maybe wondering where John Williams falls amongst all this, because he is composer people thinking of when they think of movie scores, well I don't want to say that he's over rated, because he isn't, he's done great, if not amazing work on scoring movies, I just felt the need to spotlight others.  

People that Piss Me Off: Irresponsible Skateboarders/Cyclists

Just another segment of People that Piss Me Off. 

 I understand that a lot of people on FSU's campus like to use Bicycles and Skateboards/Long boards to get around campus faster, or to get from their apartment to class, but that is no excuse for people to be dumbasses and to not respect motorists and pedestrians. I really hate the attitudes some cyclists and boarders have that just because they are on a bike or a board means they always have right of way. Now I'm a pretty conscientious motorist and pedestrian, so I have an expectation that other people will be too right? WRONG. Most of these Hipster douchebags and  stoner/miscreant boarders couldn't give less than two fucks about those around them, makes me almost want to run them over with my car, or accidentally trip and bump into them as they are riding... *sigh* what a glorious sight that would be...

Types of Douche bags I gotta deal with on the regular