It's now all systems go for the 4th Flipinos Making Waves Festival on August 21-22, 2010 at the Yonge-Dundas Square in the nerve-center of the beuatiful city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

According to Ms. Teresa Mendoza Torralba, president of the Focus and Friends Cultural Arts and Music, Mon Torralba, the musical and entertainment director is now preparing the performers in the musical portion of the program to cater not only to the Filipino audience but also to Canadians and to foreign visitors in Canada.

Last winter was my 17th in London and the most severe in so many years. The snow was relentless and I have never been so cold. I couldn’t leave the city because of a pressing job contract, so when I was not designing on my computer I was dreaming of sunny days lazing on a sidewalk café in Spain. The pictures on this spread were taken in Madrid back in May 2008 but the warm memories will linger for a long, long time and I am hoping for a repeat performance in the coming months.

Madrid Day, more popularly known as Dos de Mayo, is on the 2nd of May when the city celebrates the beginnings of the 1808 rebellion against French rule with classical, folk and rock concerts.

Our road tours in Europe during the past years have been wonderful journeys of discovery and adventure. We wanted no less this time, especially for several members of this year’s much bigger tour group who have not seen Europe before.

There were 27 of us from 5 countries - 8 from the Netherlands (my sister Quiding and her husband Eddie, long-time friends Ton and Mellie, Angel and Nora, Ana and Margarita) 2 from Belgium:Dirk and Pat; 4 from the Philippines (my brother Danny and his wife Cindy, and Cindy’s sisters Annie and Bettina); 2 from Australia (Cindy’s sister Frieda and her husband Rico); and 11 from the United States (Cindy’s brother Arnel and his wife Ginny, Cindy’s cousin Kate and her husband Ito, my brother Boy, his wife Teng and their friends Ray and Zeny, my brother Jun and his wife Iou, and me.) To facilitate coordination and planning, we opted to go on another Mediterranean cruise, followed by a land tour that I asked my good friend Luca from Italy to organize for us.

Lhyanne’s down-heartening classroom experience had really put her down for several days. Her enthusiasm about “The Philippines” turned out to be like her favorite shooting star with that bright streak that had rapidly burned itself out. I silently watched her as she gathered the pile of undistributed pictures and put them in the trash bin. How my heart ached witnessing her as she painfully glanced at the objects she just threw away.

“Hey Lhyanne, did you know that there’s two more holidays left for this month? Isn’t that going to be fun, huh anak?”