ITALY - Part I

When i first planned for 13 days in Italy, I was quite apprehensive. Sure, people told me that Italy was nice and all, but would 13 days be an overload of sculptures and smelly Italian men? And of course, the fact that I would be giving up my last 2 weeks to be with Fang and stay in my cosy little room for the last time. By going, it meant that i only had 1 day left in Rouen before my lease was up.

But it turned out that the Italy trip was FANTASTIC! Ups and downs for sure, and bearing with the heat was a little trying sometimes (nope, dont remind me that Singapore would be 35 degrees. I know.) And I definitely got a lot darker. NOOOOO! but pasta everyday, and going from waterbuses in Venice to the Medieval City Florence to dirty but very charming Naples blessed with crystal clear waters and lastly the scultures and arts of Rome and of course, Vatican City.

When we first reached Milan, guess what we saw? STRIKE! :P

I thought this was really cool. A contrast of sorts. Old and architecturally artistic station combined with chic and modern D&G poster. I think it sums up Europe really nicely. Or rather what it is trying to achieve.

VENICE


My favourite city of all. I think that partly, it's because they have no old towns or metros, which i was beginning to get sick of. Instead, they have waterbuses which run 24 hours and they brought us everywhere, from the mainland Venice to the neighbouring islands. 25 euros for 3 days unlimited. Expensive yes, but I expected it. Touristy yes, but nonetheless it didnt take away the charms of the island.

Took this picture on our waterbus from the railway station to our hostel in a nearby island Lido. Breathtaking right?


Venetian masks.


We took a nice stroll around Venice at night and were pleasantly surprised to see that the night scene was so pretty! Armed with Isaac's little tripod, we set out to take many photos. San Marco square was our favourite place for night shots. It was slightly flooded though, because Venice is sinking and the water level is rising and that square is one of the lowest areas of Venice. Imagine uppity restaurants with live classical emsemble playing away for their guests, artists trying to sell their paintings and many couples strolling along the streets.


First Harry's bar

And lastly, Burano, one of the islands. You should definitely go! There's lots of colourful houses there. Isaac and I tried hard to remember the Nippon ad, but we couldn't. Took lots of pretty pictures!

This post is too long, I will continue with Florence, Pisa, Naples and Rome in the next post. :D

Isaac's coming tonight!

Isaac's coming tonight! YAYYYY!

I guess this means that one phase of my exchange is coming to an end... the one that has all my girlfriends in it. Alvi baby, Fang bimbs and Rosh the bird conversationalist. :P We had a lot of fun eh?

Next stops with Isaac would be:
Italy
France with his family
London/ Coventry/ Cambridge/ Scotland
Switzerland

Looking forward to that... And meeting friends in UK as well, Lipen, Fon and hopefully Yirong.

Going to spend some time with Fang now... I'll miss her, that's for sure. And Rosh is coming back from Nice tonight! We're planning to cook a really yummy hot vegetarian pasta soup for her. :D

MONT SAINT MICHEL

Mont Saint Michel is soooo pretty! Even though it cost us a BOMB to get there... Imagine 7 hours of travelling for 3 hours of sightseeing... Well worth it though, how can i say that i came to Rouen without going to one of the top 10 France attractions that happens to be so near? The abbey on top of a hill, surrounded by alot of sand and islands nearby... Where it would flood in the morning and cars wouldnt be able to park. Touristy though, and therefore, expensive to lunch in. But that wasn't really a deterrent. :P

The highlight of the trip was when we walked to the sandy area (there's quick sand!)and in Fang's anxiety to step on the least squishy area, she stepped on a REALLY SQUISHY area! hahahahahaha... :D it's soooooooooo funny i couldnt stop laughing for very very very long. but aiyah, poor thing, her black pumps is now er, grey. :P But nonetheless, she was such a great sport (only whined a liiiiiiiiitle )and we managed to have alot of goofy fun together... :P

my room. tonight alone for the last time.

This WAS supposed to be our Sweden post. but thankfully i have a very very understanding girlfriend who understood my need to stay in my room for the last last time and just slack. and breathe. and recuperate from travelling tiredness. I love you Fang, and these few nights just watching Youtube together, House, Corner with Love, Heroes and movies were just so good. You are right, even if we didnt really make many international friends, we cemented our friendships here, together with Alvi and Rosh. So it's all worth it. I'm so sad that we're leaving this place soon. Sigh... I'll miss my bed, my messy room, my peace and quiet, and the whole ease of just being free and not tied down by school work, responsibilities and commitments. I will miss Rouen very much...

BERLIN, MUNCHEN, PRAGUE, BUDAPEST, WIEN, SALZBURG

This is essentially my first reeeeeeeeeeeal long backpacking trip, where i have to bring my HUGE bag and lug it around from hostel to hostel. First, I HAVE to introduce my dear companion and lover, Rosh. We shared ice cream, shared food, shared sleeping bags and of course, shared the bed too. -wink- So glad that we came together on this trip, just the 2 of us... Got to know her alot better and had great times together, even if it was just over a bowl of hot and spicy instant soup and pasta. love you darling... :P


BERLIN - Moving on, whoever said that Berlin wasn't nice ought to be shot. Seriously! it's so wacky, eclectic and full of history. And the BEAR! oh i loooooove the Berlin bear. We can find it everywhere, outside shopping centres and inside museums, all custom made to suit the place around it.


Very artsy place, where alot of punk fashion thrives and i must say that it's really nicely done. custom made high top converse shoes, sex education shop that looks like a very tasteful furniture store, 2 huge silver scultures on the river banks, the Appelman (their socialist traffic light worker!)and of course, the graffiti on the Berlin wall. They tore down most of it already, so whatever's remaining of the walls are cordoned off. Pity, i thought i could write my name on it or something.


Of course we did the touristy things as well, visited the Reighstag, the Sony centre, the Brandonburg Gate (our favorite Berlin spot)...


But our highlight of our Berlin experience, and i think what made Berlin so beautiful to us, is our experience on the free walking tour by Sandeman. Our tour guide brought us to where Hitler's body and bunker were burnt (it is now a carpark, no plagues whatsoever, because the government does not want Neo-Nazists to have a monument to commemorate to), the Jewish Memorial made of huge slabs of grey cold stone (the guide made us walk across the whole area of slabs and think about why the artist created it that way. it was so interesting, and i especially liked the fact that Rosh and I really thought about the whole concept and had a great discussion about it), the 2 bricked lines that pointed out where the Wall used to be, Charlie Checkpoint, the Nazi Air Force Headquarters that is the only remaining Nazi building (still the most hated building in Berlin because it's now the Tax Office. HEHEHE. great joke...), to where the burning of books happened outside the oldest university Humboldtz (a famous Jewish writer wrote that "He who burnt books is a prelude to him burning the bodies of people". this was written in 1820, very apt to what would happen in Germany isnt it?) All in all, it was very very educational and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience. So if you are going to Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Paris or London, please join this tour! and remember to tip the guide!


MUNCHEN
Our first stop was to Fussen where we visited the castle that inspired the Sleeping Beauty disney story... Absolutely gorgeous and a breather from city air. Fresh air, lakes, mountains form the backdrop for the castle that Mad King Ludwig built. With our new found friend Russell from America! Met him in the hostel... :P


BMW Museum


Hofbrauhaus with Russell
That night was the BEST night in our whoooole trip. Where we just drank ALOT of very very good beer at the most famour beer hall in Munich ( I LOVE DARK BEER!), had great conversations with French strangers who sat with us, and a very sweet photographer who showed me alot of his photos, and how Russell tried in his drunken state to fend off dirty drunk old men for us... Where we sat there till it closed and had to move to Hard Rock cafe next door just to drink more. That day, I drank 2 litres of beer. from 10am to 2am. LOVED the experience. :D


Walked around the Old town (this is probably my 15th old town) and well, as usual, the usual churches, markets and ice cream stalls... :P no wonder, adrian kept harping on the German beers... cos that's really the best experience of all for us in Germany.


WIEN = VIENNA
Rosh planned it so well... Beer in Germany and on to Culture in Austria. Vienna is so gorgeous, it really isnt surprising Yishan spent her trip cafe hopping and trying cakes from all over the city. Just stopping occasionally to watch the street performances (so much more interesting than the other cities we've been to) where there are mimes, breakdancing and a very very very good pianist who trolleyed her piano to the middle of the street to perform. We were sooooo amazed and she played so well! Stood there for a long long long time... Vienna Boy choir was sooo good as well. Even when we had to stand for 2 hours, it was really worth it. Thanks Rosh for making sure we went! If we could, we would have watched the 2 euro operas, but time was against us. It's ok, when i start earning money, ill watch it with the Austrian High Society and sit on 100 euros seats. :D



We managed to catch the Vienna City Marathon! (And did ALL OF THE ABOVE in just 1 day. from 6am to 12am. Maxed out our daylight...)And guess what? We saw Fengling and Kaixuan! YAYYYY! It was such a great experience screaming and cheering for the top marathoner (top 9 were Kenyans) and the best Austrian runners... :D For 2 hours on the stand, we were really experiencing the Vienna spirit.


PRAGUE
Prague was just pretty. VERY VERY pretty. And cheap too! we found a hostel that had a really fantastic breakfast spread = 4 types of cereal, eggs, 10 kinds of jam, different teas, milk, 2 juices... Clown and Bard. Please frequent them if you want your breakfast and lunch settled. all for 12 euros a night too! The sad thing is i lost some of my sunset photos, i dont know why. :( Hopefully Rosh still has hers... Please go to Prague. You wouldnt regret it... It's just too pretty already.


BUDAPEST
It's a pity the weather wasnt fantastic, so even when everyone told us budapest was a must go, we felt that it was oooooooook. So we decided to make it a Taitai trip! Splurged on a very very nice Bath (you HAVE to go to a Hungarian Bath!), great dinner at St Jupen's Restaurant (Best Cheap eats!)and had a lot of fun and confusion talking to our multilinguist hostel man (he speaks damn good chinese, spanish, french, german, hungarian, punjabi, english and i dunno what other languages he can say) Rosh was so amazed by him. I was just stumped. his chinese is better than mine i think, and he can write Hungary in chinese. Thankfully i could too, or i would just have had to dig a hole and hide in it. :P


SALZBURG
The highlight of our Salzburg experience was that I accidently booked a hostel that was outside of the town, had to take a train out. So it turned out to be a B&B experience in a small village that overlooks the hills and mountains. where the air was so fresh it smelt like Nepal and where we spent our last night in Salzburg drinking wine and laughing like 2 silly crazy girls. The hostess wasnt very friendly though, we think it's because she thinks we're not straight. think about it. EVERYONE who came down for breakfast in the morning were couples. and er, so it's natural to assume that she prob thought we were too... hehehe. Mozart's town of origin. so most tourism spots were geared around where he stayed, his statue etc... It's a pity he died because he was stressed over financial problems. if he had just patented his own Marzipan chocolates, he would be a millionaire. they sold the chocs EVERYWHERE. and pity it rained the next day, so we couldnt catch the sound of music tour. but that meant we saved 30 euros and kept our 2 weeks trip well within 420 euros. -pat on our shoulder-


If you can read to the end of this, well done. :D It's such a long post!

PS: Pardon my english on the blog. Afterall, this IS a blog. :P

PARIS, BARCELONA and COTE D'AZUR with my family

Dear all

This will be mostly pictures because i am rushing to Germany for 2 weeks and I know my sisters will kill me if i make them wait so long to see their pictures. :D I miss them already...

BARCELONA ( part of it... the other pics are with them)
Sagrada Familia - Gaudi spent 40 years on that piece of art before he was killed by a tram car. Very sad...



Another Gaudi's work, Park Guell.
The lizard, by the way, is damn small. And the houses, according to my da-jie-fu, look like Hansel and Gretel's house. With my da-jie as company (she majored in Arts), Barcelona turned out to be less of a shopping trip and more like the chase after Gaudi's works. Fine by me, but my er-jie nearly had to have her stomach washed. Or so she says.

All in all, they really enjoyed Barcelona and I'm so glad we had such a good view of Barce from Park Guell. Lesson learnt: Do not go to the Olympics Village and stay faithful to the Gaudi trail... :D

PS: Outside the restaurant La Quinze Nity (damn good Spanish restaurant) at Place Reial, is Calvin Clown. Who entertained me and my er-jie throughout the half hour queue. He is SO FUNNY. "na ne ne ne ne phey phey" he whistles, each time he makes a stunt. :D


PARIS
This is Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, La Defense and us on board the BATOBUS, which brings us throughout Paris' most famous sights for a very cheap price. Esp good when the French think all asians look alike and my sister could get in with student's price as well. EVEN THOUGH they prob graduated 10 years ago... HAHA...



NICE

Beautiful coast line, pebble beaches, top naked women sun worshipping, paranomic view at the Chateau, Cours Seleya for fresh flowers and produce, Promenade Anglais and the very very yummy Pasta Bastas along Rue de la Prefecture.


I think that Nice was the nicest among the few towns i visited along the Cote D'azur... And of all, it was the most organised and I had the most relaxing feeling there when I sun bathed by the beach... Thanks to my family who had to endure the sun (when women get older, they absolutely refuse to suntan.. freckles fear etc...only applies to singaporeans, cos the old ladies there were naked):P

On to MONACO...
The Land of the SUPER Rich. Quotes a sentence from a friend's friend's blog that i just read. Even the Singaporean's Richest may qualify for their welfare system. Known for Princess Grace (Actress Grace Kelly) and if you read the tabloids, her scandalous daughter Princess Carolina, F1 races, yachts, Casino Monte Carlo. We basically just stationed ourselves outside the casino and people watched. Beautiful young women and old men in antique cars, and lots of other damn chio cars which sadly, i dont have the names for. Luckily, my sisters redeemed our poor sad sorry looks by buying alot of stuff from Gucci. 3 cheers to working women and their husbands' credit cards!


CANNES
Was it glitzy? Nope. Worth going? Nope. Saw any celebrities? Nope.
Although i can proudly say i saw the Cannes fest's CHAIRS. Yep, they were preparing for the big show in 2 weeks time. Rosh, are you sure u wanna go?
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GRASSE - the land of perfumes and flowers
Went to Grasse for their perfume tour and I love it! The sales lady was really nice and we had a free guided tour, after which we strained our noses for 1 whole hour looking for nice fragrances. Finally i can start to smell nice after my perfume spilled on my flight to France... :P


Ok, this is the end of our 2 week family trip. -pats on my own head- for a job well done in organising this trip for my family. And many thanks to my sisters who paid for my expenses, even though it meant that they had to go on budget and burst their spending limits. i love you!

Next stop: Berlin, Munich, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg. -yawnnnnn-

Clubbing at La Hacienda

This was when Ade was still with us at Rouen... We decided to go, even though the entrance was as usual a bomb = 15 euros, because it was an open secret that it was OPEN BAR. Shhhhhh. So we went! After a loooong bus journey (outskirts of Rouen), where we witnessed the embarassing scene of a French boy puking all over the bus and himself (they drank before the clubbing, it's called pre-party. We think its quite dumb, since it was open bar anyway, but most of the people on the bus were drunk already, so no one cared. Not even the guy beside that poor fella who was drunk also, and making ALOT OF NOISE cheering and singing at the top of his voice)

The vodka orange was quite mild, but ohhhhh the whiskey coke was DAMN STRONG. After 4 glasses, i was quickly and decidedly happy high and danced. DAMN FUN! It was even comparable to the experience in Argentina (ohhhh those days were soooo fun!), and there are not many clubbing experiences i have that can even remotely be compared to my South Am trip. (Gerald, JR, Sam, when are we going again?) All in all, it was great fun! Even though there were hiccups at the end, but still, I declare my last clubbing in France a very very very good one. :D