Travel

Last week, my parents finally had their first oversea trip to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Apparently they had a good time. My mother can't stopping telling me what they had seen on their trip. My father emailed me some nice fun pictures they took. That's what I like about traveling: seeing new places, meeting new people, and sharing stories.

One of my memorable trips was my European trip a few years ago. I took a plane from Paris to Roma. After I arrived, I found the airport was somewhat small, and not crowded at all. I had to walk a few minutes to the train station where only one clerk was selling tickets. With help from a couple from Eastern Europe, I purchased my ticket to the center of Roma. Within half an hour, I got onto a train. I started to doubt if I caught the right train when I saw the sign of Roma was the opposite direction where the train was heading. I asked a lady sitting close to me if the train was going to Roma. The lady said her English wasn't good and told me to ask other people. Then I asked a young fellow who was reading an Italian newspaper sitting next to her. He looked at me and smiled, and told me this train was coming from Roma. Maybe he felt that he should make me feel ease, he added I didn't need to worry, and I could stay on the train to the terminal and the train would go back to Roma shortly. I relieved and thanked him. When he was waiting to get off the train, he saw me again. He asked me where I came from. I told him that I just flew from Paris. He asked me if I was a Chinese. I said yes. Then he started speaking Mandarin to me! I couldn't even tell if he was a Chinese.

A friend joined me in Roma the next day. After 3 days in Roma, my friend and I planed to fly to Berlin to visit our friend. When we got to the airport, my friend was looking for our flight. After quite some time, he still couldn't find it. He checked the tickets again, and he found that we came to the wrong airport! There are two airports in Roma: Ciampino airport and Fiumicino airport (the main airport). Then I remembered how small the airport when I first arrived in Roma. I didn't remember the name. I guess it was Ciampino. The airport we were at now was big and full of people. I guess it is called Fiumicino or Leonardo da Vinci airport. Neither my friend nor I can speak Italian. The airline tickets we had were booked in Danish. Neither of us doubled check the tickets before we came to the airport. Both my friend and I complained about the Roma airports with such difficult names for foreigners. Ciampino and Fiumicino, they should just call Cappuccino.

We missed our flight and had to purchase new tickets. The worst thing was that my friend couldn't find his luggage when we arrived in Berlin (he got his luggage before he went back home). It was very expensive to buy the last minute tickets. It was priceless to see my friend cursing from Roma to Berlin.

Entertaining News

While I was running hierarchical models, I checked out the China Daily and found a piece of news "Guangxi nails diary scandal official". Receiving bribery of $71,000 in 8 years, this Guangxi official could face "a sentence of at least 10 years in jail if convicted". Out of curiosity, I did an online search in Chinese. It returned quite a lot of links focusing on his diary detail recording his extra marital affairs with five women. At the same time, quite a few people considered he was not a bad official.

I just can't help bust out laughing in the office.

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