Tales from a Land of Germs

An Ode to Team BMW

2006-05-15T05:42:00.001-07:00

I've saved the Sweden and UK trips as drafts cos I really wanna write about this past weekend first!

so, me and ben really wanted to do a roadtrip cos it was our last free weekend in Germany before we start out on our trips to Spain and Ireland, and then our split trips. Basically we wanted to rent a car to go to Stuttgart to do some shopping and our car would comprise the two of us, Conrad(Canuck), Geno(Belarussian commie turned canuck) and Pili(Princess María del Pilar Hernández Padilla of Mexico, with the free apartment, that (hah!) doesn't have hot water in the sink. =P). We tried getting a BMW 3-series but somehow they didn't have a manual. Thanks to the fantastic persuasion of conrad and geno, and I quote "if we don't get a manual, we're going to Avis", we got a free upgrade to a cool new 6-gear, 192 horsepower BMW 5-series.Where do I begin on the fantastic road adventures? Got the car on the afternoon of Friday the 12th and first came back to EBS for some pictures...next, we decided to take the car on a spin to pretty much nowhere. Went first to Kloster Eberbach (where In the Name of the Rose was filmed) Then, with the use of pili's roadmap, we located the nearest village, IDSTEIN and went there for a walk and dinner. Idstein was totally random but yeah it was sooo pretty and we had some homemade apfelwein with a smokey tasting additive that made it less bitter.Took a pretty relaxing drive at about...ahem...160km/h back for some wine (where geno proceeded to break his glass by biting it. good job dude.) and an early night, cos Stuttgart, Metzingen and Heidelberg was a very early day away!

Met up with the gang the next morning and off we were to Stuttgart. Took a little drive before we made a major pitstop of 4 people changing places. Finally we hit the target of 240km/h on the A5(the longest stretch of the Autobahn with no speed limit), kudos to Geno for that. heh. Had just a couple of hours in Heidelberg for some really crazy photos... and series of photos as well...

HOVER AND PUNCH!

FLYING KICK!
BADASS PILI!

and then we went to Stuttgart to see the Mercedes museum. so, that was closed. tough luck. back on the road again to Metzingen shoppingggggg!!!! Just a quick list of what factory outlets there were - Diesel, Hugo Boss, NIKE, Puma, Esprit, Levi's etc. That said, most of the stuff wasn't very cheap so we spent most of our time, and money at Hugo Boss. heh. Conrad, Ben and I are now owners of some fancy garb which will be unveiled once we get back to our respective countries, albeit much poorer.What else to do but to find yet another random city to have dinner at. Heilbrunn was on the way back so we went there. Ho boy, the lasagne was probably the best I've everever had. A quick downtime followed that when we got stuck in a 3 hour jam on the A5, getting kicked off the highway thanks to a closing of a section, and then back to Oestrich at 3am, 4 hours of sleep, and then meeting once again at 8am for our final day of fun!

a typical day of an EBS student followed... breakfast on a balcony with our polo tees, collars popped, sunglasses on, waiting to get into our beemer for a trip tooooooo NURBERG! took a nice ferry ride across the river from Rudesheim and then full speed ahead to our destination, where we were passed on numerous stages by porsches and cars reinforced with cages.

To cut that short, when we arrived, I've never seen such a collection of cars. NO need to visit any bloody porsche museum in Stuttgart. I've seen my fill in Nurberg. and oh yes, there was a fancy ass ferrari modena there, along with a Hayabusa motorbike, a Viper GTS, too many BMW M3s, an M5, and the list goes on.
Me and ben didn't take the car on a spin on the circuit cos we weren't that comfy with the left hand drive to go absolutely nuts. The strangest thing about this circuit is that you can just buy a ticket at a machine, drive your car in, pop the ticket into the machine and yeah, straight in you go. That means, a 16 year old could theoretically get in as well.
the ride was quite a frightening one, to be honest. haha. 22km of road, 5 jumpy undergrads in the car, and crazy motorcyclists decked out in racing gear (kneepads, elbowpads and all) don't make the most fantastic combination on the track. That said, the rides were irreplaceable, and probably so are the worn-out brakes due to the cornering...Took a nice ride back through very beautiful countryside before connie went to pick up his brother while we had a couple hours of rest. Next up, the rhein for wine, or so we thought. we got into the car, decided that getting high before our attempt to break the land speed record fo 240km/h wasn't a good plan, thus we headed straight for the A5 again. heh. I have never wasted so much gas on a totally pointless venture (averaging 11.1litres per 100km). the highway was 50km away but would that stop us? hell no! Gene and Conrad took the car there but we never got past 240km/h unfortunately. I took the wheel back (not before having some cool photos taken) but couldn't break the record either. only managed to hit about 215km/h. damn.
final stop, or so we thought once again, to the rhein. we had a couple bottles of wine and some snacks, sharing photos and doing very schnapps activities. Of course that was never enough and Team BMW was called to the fore. "paging for team bmw, paging for team bmw"... Just needed to have a last drive up to Schloss Johannesberg. Balls of fun. We said goodnight to Kat (as our car was christened) and went to sleep, superbly happy.

This was definitely the best ever weekend in germany to date. Team BMW, while we weep the passing of Kat, let us remember that she was a good car and damn, the entire weekend was schnaaaappppsssssss! 240 euros of gas on 1541km in 3 days. that's a bloody record in itself eh? Will definitely miss you guys... (and we'll all miss talks of FF, mister burns, encyclopaedia, uncle fester, mcgee etc.) cheers.

Off to see that bloody Mermaid

2006-05-10T05:25:00.000-07:00

so, barely a week after my luxembourg trip, i was off for a two week trip. First stop? COPENHAGEN! dragged my butt outta bed at an extremely early time yet again in order to catch the 9am flight. I reckon it's my most expensive flight to date cos there're virtually no cheap flights to Copen. That said, I had a ball of a time over there. Met up with Christine and Sharleen there, and as you can see below, Christine welcomed us with superbly yummy cookies from Harrod's. Basically we dumped our stuff at her place and then headed out to......the Carlsberg Brewery and Museum. Seriously, I've never ever seen that many beer bottles in one place. WE got to see a bit of how the beer is made and on a more interesting note, the origin and journey of the Carlsberg brand. ... and what better thing to do than to head to the Carlsberg bar, of which our ticket qualified us for two free beers each. heh. the best part was that all of us were on pretty empty stomachs, besides the few biscuits we had. And as the pictures show, we were ok before the first beer, a li'l red after the first, and after the second, everyone was a little happy, some more than others! Me and Sharleen tried, in vain, to get Chris to skip class, so as that studious girl headed to school, the two of us went in search of Christiana in Christianhavn, a very dodgy area....

But before that, we walked the streets of Copenhagen and there's a fair bit of unique architecture here...

...believe it or not, this used to be the old stock exchange...
...and this church has a strange looking spiral tower that is accessible to visitors
This area used to be fill with druggies and much more seedy but in recent years it got quite cleaned up, though not as much... If you remember the slums in those american movies with people surrounding huge tin cans burning stuff in there and trying to keep warm. That kind of sums up the place. There was one unique street in this area...

...Pusher Street, where we're technically not supposed to take photos cos there're guys there selling pot and hash among other things. Something strange abt that street that is similar to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, you are not allowed to sell soft drugs wholesale but then the Coffee Shops can sell them. So, the question is, where do the CoffeeShops get their supply? Same thing here. There're stalls selling bongs, paper to wrap the weed etc, BUT it's illegal to sell the soft drugs... Police patrol PUSHER Street, but like that actually works. duh.

first night was pretty uneventful i guess... spent it watching soccer at a kebab place and then walking around near the huge theme park Tivolibefore we headed back to chitchat. (didn't get to see RQ but saw his missus who was visiting her own dorm. =P)
Hardcore touristing commenced the next day! After some very excellent hotdogs (wrapped in bacon),Three of us walked the whole way to the National Museum (which has some pretty strange stuff like torture devices. Managed to get an interesting picture below as i accidentally overexposed my picture),Rosenborg Slot, where I managed to get a 5 minute free entrance and the royal treasury. Saw this really cool set of 1500 gold figurines which the King used to utilise for his 'war games'.the Marble Church, the Royal Palace which was really nearby(where we took fun photos along the way)
and of course, the MARVELLOUS, INCREDIBLE, AMAZING, ONE-OF-ITS-KIND...mermaid. jeez. we knew we'd be duped but we just had to see it. it's just one of those things i guess. we pretty much walked across the city just to see that piece of bronze. and it wasn't even that nice. haha.the other photos we took were more fun i think... heh...we wanted to get another two beers at Carlsberg but thanks to my searching for a postcard, we missed the time (sorry girls!), but all was not lost. heh. we headed to this coffeeshop to get a hot chocolate. ho boy. that was excellent. a huge chocolate piece left to melt in hot milk... mmmmmmmm...Sharleen left that night so I hung out with Chris and her dormmates. I think that's one of the things that I am missing on this exchange. Dorm life does sound pretty cool but then Copenhagen is bloody expensive. tough call. Fantastic trip tho. See you two back in Singapore in July! Next stop: Stockholm

Free trip to Luxembourg!

2006-05-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

so, when i travelled from Heidelberg to Munich, they didn't check my Eurail pass, so that meant I had a free trip available. Tricky bit was that I had to complete using my day of travel before I left for Copenhagen, failing which it would lapse into invalidity. What to do what to do, do schoolwork or find another place to travel? With my unwavering focus on education and learning, of course I chose the latter! My pass had already taken me to Belgium and the Netherlands, and under the pass, I could go to the entire Benelux region. In order to make sure I felt fulfilled, I decided to check out the LUX portion, hence Luxembourg. Just 3 1/2 hours away, I hauled my ass outta bed at 5 am in the morning and took the train there. It was a good ride there by train and since europe was entering spring, the sights were nothing short of beautiful. I'd show the videos but then it's 12am now and I'm lazy to upload them to YouTube. Will do so sometime later I guess.

So i got in pretty early and the guy over at the tourist office told me I should be able to cover the place in abt 4 hours, excluding the Casemates (a network of underground galleries cut right into the stone walls of the fortress). Basically Luxembourg was formed around 1440 where this fella decided to create this fortress in the middle of nowhere. The place has been annexed by the prussians, the spanish among others and therefore these casemates have different portions to them, some carved into the stone itself, and some blown up at later stages.
but I get ahead of myself, though not by much. Saw the churches and walked every possible street I could find in Luxembourg, and I still covered the entire area within an hour and a half, including the purchase of a shirt and some souvenirs.

Back to the casemates. There're two sets of casemates in Luxembourg - The Petrusse Casemates and the Bock Casemates. The former has a guide, the latter is a walkthrough using a map. The following few pictures are of the Petrusse Casemates. We basically walked down a very long, uneven, steep flight of stairs down the height of the bridge (used to be the largest arched bridge in Europe) that you see there. Found something interesting in my pictures. Check out the one just below. If you see the white dot there, take a good look at it. I'm not a big fan of such superstitions but apparently such things are called orbs. I ever took a picture late at night with a friend at Sentosa's Siloso Beach and these orbs were all over the bloody picture. And we all know that Siloso Beach ain't the cleanest of places in the world. Well, it could just be a reflection of light from dust, as I thought it could be. But this 'orb' was very far into the distance, right up the flight of stairs. SOOOOOOO... I'm actually fairly curious abt this thing now This valley you see above which the bridge crosses used to have a major body of water through it. But then, it kinda dried up I think. 25km of Casemates, only 17km left, with abt 2km open to the public. Across the river, the casemates that are closed to the public now houses the vaults of the Bank. Went next to the other set of casemates, walking along this pretty area called the Grund in order to get there. Within those casemates, I was actually able to get a couple of good shots of the area, so sit back, scroll down and enjoy.After all that travelling, it was still only 1600h, so I took an earlier train back, met up with the chaps in Wiesbaden for soccer and drinks. A good day. A very nice one. Missing Singapore? neh.

Hamburgers, anyone?

2006-05-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

After a pretty decent night sleeping on 4 seats of the train, we arrived in Hamburg. Once again, it was rainy on the first day. BUT, does that deter the intrepid duo from going to the Sunday Fish Market? Hell no. so, we dropped our bags off at the hostel since our rooms weren't ready and we headed off in the rainy weather to get ourselves some much needed fish. I think Germany must be the only place in the world where you can find a pub-like atmosphere early in the morning and their people drinking beer at bloody 9am in the morning.the weather was quite shitty so after walking ard just a little and realising our pictures would turn out quite shitty anyhow, we went back to the hostel and waited for our rooms to be ready. We were quite lucky in this case. heh. We booked our 6-bed DORM for 16 Euros each and somehow the system screwedup and we were each alloted a single room. Ah, the wonders of technology. Embrace it.
Post-nice long shower and a quick shut-eye, we made another decision, i.e. to make full use of our Eurail pass to visit another city nearby, called Lubeck. Pity it was a Sunday, and Easter Sunday at that, so most things were closed, but we had some sun when we arrived, so we did some walking around and phototaking. Lubeck is really pretty, for those of you chaps visiting Hamburg. Just an hour away, it's worth an afternoon's visit at best since the place is really quite small... That said, there's a St. Mary's Church there which has this amazing astronomical clock. I haven't quite gone to read about it and the lady at the church couldn't translate the german into english, but I'm quite interested to go find out the mysteries of my future... hmmm...
got back to Hamburg that night and then proceeded to the Reeperbahn. It's the Red Light District of Hamburg and apparently really famous. Having had visited Amsterdam, our curiosity was quite piqued. To our surprise, when we got out of the train station, we appeared at the start of a... AMUSEMENT PARK! heh. To cut things short, we spent the next hour touring the park, and then having MORE fish - Herring with bread, Roasted mackerel... mmmmmmm... Ah yes, I just remembered the strangest thing in the amusement park. no, not the raw fish, nor the 1 metre long bratwurst, nor some rides which i've never seen before. There was this extremely strange pair of twins, which we reckoned were Thai. Passed by them couple of times and they were always hand-in-hand, with glares on their faces, and we think they were glaring at us (not staring, GLARING). bloody strange. Anyhow, we went down the Reeperbahn later, and damn, it sucked. NOTHING compared to Amsterdam. There was this club called the Chinese Club which had some party (we thought it was a college party). Two things were ironic about it. Turned out, we were pretty much the only Chinese there, and it was a bloody high school graduation party. We kinda upped and outed within an hour or so.
Bright and sunny day came, and along with it, the hardcore touristing. I must say, when the sun is out and all, Hamburg is really very nice. There were buskers around playing the violin or singing (this counter-tenor chap was hitting the high notes so nicely that we thought it was actually a girl before we turned the corner and saw that it was a 30-plus year old fella). Of course we also did the normal sights such as the Rathaus (City Hall), churches, this tower of a certain church that had been hit by lightning and had most of it burnt down.More importantly, we went to the port for a cruise. The port, like Singapore's, is ighly important to Hamburg's economy. The cruise's commentary was in German and I couldn't understand 98% of it, that wasn't half bad. Some highlights included the seeing of this ship called the Freedom of the Seas. It's massive and if I remember correctly, this ship is pretty much an island in itself, having shopping centres, too-expensive rooms, swimming pools and pretty much any sort of amenities you could ever want...we then took a long walk along the pier. Two guys, walking along a pier. Farking gay. ahaha. but then, the boats along the way were damn cool. The ship below actually just went to the Arctic on some sorta adventure trip and then there were other types of humongous sailboats around which were just pretty to see.It was still Easter Monday and a public holiday at that, so most shopping areas were still closed. That's good for my buddy ben, of whom I took a picture of in Lubeck, decked out in all-new sartorial splendour. And with cup in hand.We wanted to take the earlier train back so we made a final walk around the area, and then to the Dom for somemore goodies (sweet roasted nuts) before heading to the train station. On our way, we found this huge monument to one of the Kaisers, and us being us, we had to climb up and take pictures. haha.As usual, the bane of trains came to haunt us. We were supposed to take the train at 1824h, but somehow it never came. A bloody Inter-City train that caters to international travellers, and noooo, the announcement was in German and even not a single translation. We asked around after a while and from we were told, the train just didn't come, and they didn't have an explanation for that. We had a long ride back on the 1924h train, sitting and sleeping in the corridors of the train. damn uncomfortable, i tell u. ugh. This problem compounded itself when we arrived at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof cos there was no train back to Oestrich Winkel at that time. We decided to cut our losses and take a train to Wiesbaden, and then cab back cos it was just too cold to hang out at the train station that night. Cost us 35 Euros. That's 70 SGD, for a not very long ride, even if it was in a pretty nice Mercedes cab... I slept well that night, just cos I was incredibly tired from walking and train chasing....

Munchen!

2006-04-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

Munich was our next stop. We decided to get there early by leaving on the 0115h train the night before from Heidelberg. Curled up in our uncomfortable trainseats, we made it there at abt 0530h. That wasn't so bad cos it gave us a good amount of time for the two days. We started the day at well, the hostel... then we met up with Sabrina and went to the Olympic Stadium. It was in a really nice area, with hilltop views and a huge pond.
Pity most of the stuff in Munich weren't open cos it was Good Friday. We spent the rest of the day walking around to the different outdoor sights. The Residenz was pretty darn cool, as were the English Gardens - where we ended up taking pseudo-cool shots!We also managed to hit the churches such as the Church of Our Lady (the main Munich Church) and St. Michael's Church (St. Michael's - Pre GEP era for me). We had the opportunity to just catch part of the Good Friday Mass at both churches, in different styles at both places however. The choir singing was sheer amazing (although I bet the acoustics of the church had something to do with that). heh.

The night was pretty awesome when we went to the Hof Brauhaus. Beer in one litre mugs (of which I am now a proud owner of) and the pork knuckles. sooooooo goooooodddddd!!!!!The next day we went to the Dachau concentration camp. It's not as shocking as the Auschwitz one in Poland, but nevertheless it has immense meaning. Briefly, it was the first conc. camp and served a lot as the 'education' centre for SS officers. For tourists, it might just be another place, but if you think about it, it was a place that served evil. very scary thought and i learnt a lot about history in one day.
we took our minds off this when we got back to mainland munich, by going for a walk through the shopping street and then to another famous brewery, the Weisse Brauhaus. Had pork knuckles AGAIN and some of their home brews. shiok stuff.
Last stop, Hostel. or so we thought. Had another couple of hours to spare, so we went to the Hof Brauhaus again for beer. Got to know some students there and we ended up making it just in time for the train, albeit with another 2 litres of liquid in the system. healthy diet, liquid diet. haha.

Of Germs and Spores; Of Sperm and Gore

2006-04-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

ok, the latter phrase has nothing to with my trip, and in sooth, neither does the former, but we basically did a trip around some popular parts of Germany - Heidelberg, Munich and Hamburg in 3 days! That was a load of fun! So, we set off at an obscenely early time of 0518h in the morning to haul our butts to Heidelberg, where we stayed at Alvin's auntie's place. The first day was quite rainy so we decided to postpone the main castle. We ended up walking around the main shopping street with super pretty toy shops...... and then along the river, taking really stupid pictures along the way...
There was this interesting building in the city actually - the student jailhouse. Apparently students who caused trouble used to get jailed for a couple of weeks, and youths being youths, made this a rite of passage, marking their rooms and stuff like that. just look at the pictures and you will understand. It was also Alvin's birthday on the first day, so we ate at this greek place and I swear I've never seen so much meat on one plate. jeez, there was pork, frikadellen, lamb, etc. absolutely crazy. To add to that, there was the cake. -drool- This american lady made this cake for him and it was so damn good. Of course, both Ben and I did it great justice by eating a few pieces. haha.
BEFORE:AFTER:Next day, both me and Ben headed for the schloss. Heidelberg is primarily famous for its castle ruins and damn, it's beautiful. When we arrived at the gardens, it suddenly dawned on me that I was there before, but the experience is not as deep thanks to stupid tourist buses which do not let the person really appreciate and soak in the feel of the area. We saw numerous people run to the places, just to snap a picture and say "I was there" and then run off to another spot "I was also there" and so on and so forth. We, on the other hand, tried to go down this spire, climbing over gates but were thwarted by other security gates. So we resorted to taking even more stupid and some might say, sacrilegous photos...The evening was spent walking around after our delicious apfel streudel mit vanilla eis and if you ask ben, that's about the time he became poor. haha. One G-Star jacket, one Diesel jeans, one T-shirt, one sunglasses, one pair of shoes etc. hahahaha. This was just before we went up Philosopher's Weg, which, I must say, gives an excellent view of the castle. Just check it out for yourselves...

foodpartyfoodpartyrecovery

2006-04-11T03:14:00.000-07:00

somehow, i've made a miraculous recovery in record time. Been going to the opthalmologist pretty much on a daily basis, in addition to my hourly antibiotic eyedrops. Last Saturday, he told me I was almost ok, in an astonishing 3 days. What was even more interesting was when he told me that he had considered putting me in hospital when he saw my corneal ulcer.

Even after all that, the weekend hasn't been that much of a loss. We had some little party thingy going on Friday, and then a sports event on saturday before the much larger party at night! That was damn fun and I reckon it's actually the last uni-wide party for quite a long while...

We were over at the portuguese guys' place on sunday for an afternoon bbq cos it was guil's birthday. No pictures from that tho cos I didn't bring my camera. We're all jealous of their place. for 270 Euros, they have a washing machine, a 28 inch TV, a twin-bed, and an amazing terrace on the second floor... so.... we're institutionalising the sunday bbq. at least once a fortnight! haha.

Benito then came over yesterday on our random invite. There was basically chicken rice, ba hu and broccoli cooked with mushrooms and sambal chilli. That was damn shiok.... haha. Conrad will be over tonight for General Tsao's Chicken. Never heard of that damn thing before but we've managed a good attempt a couple of weeks back. Now, to perfect it!

Tomorrow we leave for Heidelberg, and to Munich on friday, and then to hamburg on sunday. That should be good fun. To top it all off, we might go to Maastricht to party next Thursday.

Lots to look forward to!!!!

Corneal Ulcer

2006-04-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

So, to cut the long story short, I didn't make it to Barcelona cos I have a bloody corneal ulcer in my left eye. It is a tad serious which explains why I cancelled the trip and am currently making daily trips for the doctor to check it out. For now, a hiatus. But tomorrow, we party.

What I've Learnt So Far.

2006-04-04T05:42:00.000-07:00

well. I bet some of you immediately said in your heads "Not much" or "Nothing good"...

So, I disappear again tomorrow for a good 12 days, into Barcelona, Madrid, Heidelberg and Munich. Decided to scrap Stuttgart cos it's too expensive and besides shopping, I can't find a good reason to go there. Hence I'll wait for my buddy Ben and some other shopaholics to drive down together instead.

But I digress. 48 days and have I learnt nothing? geez. After my 15 minutes of sleep last night at the Mainz Hauptbahnhof (Train Station), I stayed lucid all the way till we were supposed to hop on our train. During that period, I asked myself simple questions on some things I've learnt to date. Lemme list them down, in no order of priority (well, maybe the last one is the most important)

1) Using the often annoying transport system and getting better at it
2) Snowboarding
3) Finance... right... I wish..
4) Belgians suck
5) Vienna rocks
6) I dig hardcore touristing by walking and biking
7) Europe rocks
8) That despite being so far off in independent extended bachelor-night style, I still'd rather have you around.

Till June.

Ski Pass: 50 Euros / Snowboard: 47 Euros / Accommodation: 35 Euros / Experience: Priceless

2006-04-04T04:40:00.000-07:00

So, on saturday morning we hauled our asses outta bed at around 5am so that we could take the 0607h bus to the train station where we then found our way to Semmering. The view on the way there was absolutely amazing, with the Alps in the distance and all. But this entry is not primarily about the beauty of the place. It's about snowboarding, and that's what the pictures will show.These are some pictures that show the slopes that were available and a chart of all the possible slopes ...from the top of the piste It's really tough to illustrate how fun it was. But we're uploading the vids to YouTube.com for the viewing pleasure of everybody. In a nutshell, we started off at the beginners' slopes. Nevertheless we found ourselves very beaten up even before lunch. We then decided to do the "run before you walk" tactic, so we went straight to the slopes after that. Of course there was a price to pay, with incredible falls that winded me, sprains in my wrist, cramps in my thighs among other mini injuries...
...We were really fortunate tho, to have had a 15 minute lesson from this chap from the Czech Republic,
which then allowed us to improve almost immediately!
and to end off both days, we had nice beer after the amount of damage our bodies took. sheer heaven.
And of course, our wonderful room, which never fails to get me fast asleep pronto......chilling out Now I pray that if I get posted outta town for a project, please put me in London or LA. Of course London sometime early next year would be good cos a certain MA training program will be taking place there, and then on a weekend, I'll just fly somewhere to snowboard. If I get the West Coast, then Whistler, here I come!

Viennese Escapades

2006-04-03T23:55:00.000-07:00

As some of you might have known, we were headed for Vienna last Wednesday. Boarded the train to Mainz and then another 10.50 Euro bus ride to Frankfurt Hahn Airport. We got into BTS Airport (Bratislava) and then got onto yet another bus to Vienna. As it turned out, we arrived early enough to not have to stay at the train station since the public transport system hadn't shut down for the night yet. As it turned out, someone was still staying at Bryan's place so Serene put us up (Thanks so much!)... ...and we ended up bumming at her place for 4 nights, albeit the mini cramped up conditions on the floor, exacerbated by Jingzhong when he arrived the next night. One of the highlights of the first night was our 2300h meal of kasekrainer (bratwurst with melted cheese within.) bloody excellent stuff I tell you, and in our state of hunger, it tasted even better!Spent some time chatting before going to sleep and then BREAKFAST! yum. we had microwaved waffels with honey, and then the hardcore touristing began, or so we thought. Well, we started off with a museum...and being us, we couldn't resist playing fools in these hallowed halls of knowledge.
That said, the place was beautiful! I've been to Vienna before but I don't remember it as vividly as I did in these past couple of days. More pictures of the area follows...
Lunch consisted of this apparently traditional Viennese cuisine called Schnitzel. It's also a specialty in Germany but somehow the one in Vienna tasted better (and with a higher price too). It was really cool tho, to just sit on the main street (Graben), having our lunch and then a nice beer in the great weather. The sun was out, the temperature was cool and there was just the slightest breeze. While we were nearby, we went to Stephensdom. This is where deja vu set in. As said above, I was here about 8 years ago and at that time, it started snowing just as we arrived. As we approached Stephensdom last Thursday, a sudden image of the Dom with snow covered roof came back to mind. That was the very first time I had seen snow so pure and fresh. 8 years later, I see it in its full glory at the beginning of spring. A breathtaking sight, and thus far, one of my favourite cathedrals.

This is where we decided not to do the hardcore touristy thing on Thursday and instead just roam about, see some sites and chill out at the Hofburg, a main square where people play soccer at or bring their dogs for a run.We went walking around to Karlskircht and then to the Nasch Markt (where they sell lots of chinese foodstuff and other spices/kebabs etc. etc.) until the night arrived when we met Serene, Bryan and this chap called Ba Lam. The ice cream place that they brought us to was damn shiok. I reckon each cup of ice-cream that we had consisted of at least 4 scoops of ice cream. We actually went back again the next day for more. The next day was basically very touristy. We hit the Schonbrunn Palace...The gardens at the Schloss Schonbrunn was also beautiful as you can see above. Therefore, we could not resist but pay tribute to Ben and Cowan's posterkid past. (kudos to JZ for the good shot, which I'm still waiting to arrive.) hahahaha.

...and then the Belvedere Gardens...
... and finally, dinner with a much larger group! We even met an SMU student that I'd never seen before in my 2 1/2 years. Apparently she knows who I am by proxy of Chui Ling. Ben and JZ had a good laugh when they saw my eyes spring open upon hearing that she's actually from SMU cos I had no idea she existed...

...Group Photo!

Well, we went snowboarding and stuff, as shown in the next entry, but when we got back, we got fined 40 Euros each for not getting the internal metro ticket. Quite sore about it, but that said, we still decided to make the rest of the trip worth it. This meant we woke up the next day, bummed around for a little bit, and then went for a SUSHI BUFFET!!!!
And that pretty much summed up our Vienna trip...... filled with beautiful landscapes and architecture, adventure, good food, and new friends. In fact, on our way back, we met this girl, Doris, who's working on a social project in Luxembourg and was in Vienna to do an exam with hopes of qualifying for a ergo-therapy course.
And what would the end of a trip be, without a taste of typical Slovakian beer at the airport? =Pand yes, we spent a night at the Mainz train station. This is us at about 0230h in the morning....

Castle Hunting!

2006-03-26T03:24:00.000-08:00

thousand apologies for the lack of updates but nothing much has been happening around here. So, I decided to find something to do last Thursday, which involved looking for some castles in the area. Just for a couple sentences of background knowledge, the Rheingau (Rhein Valley) has something like 20 castles between Koblenz and Wiesbaden. Not all of them are Schlosses (castles) per se but most are; the others are Klosters (Monasteries).

But back to my story, it was really fun, albeit bloody tiring, taking our not-so-good mountain bikes on a ride. A chronological picture story of the day follows:

1)Went for a run in the morning to Hallgarten and here's the beautiful view of the village!
2) We headed off into the hills after lunch and the Schloss Vollrads was our first stop. The views were beautiful but the cycling sucked cos it was uphill all the way...... We got some free wine-tasting and whoa, it was prolly the best wine I've ever drunk in my whole life! It's expensive by local prices but if you convert the prices to SG dollars, it's actually cheap (abt 20 SGD) for greatgreat wine.just before i almost fell off my bike... =P
...beautiful view, ain't it?

3) Next stop for us was the Schloss Johannesburg which was a good distance away and even further upslope. The only good thing was that we had a downhill to play with like speed demons!! woohoo

inside the living area... it said "Kein Eingang, Privat" but I just went in anyway. hahaha
The vineyards up here are really steep but the view at the cutoff is probably unparalleled in summer.
4) Our last stop after a very steep downhill freewheel... Kloster Johannesburg, which has somehow been converted to a mini event-hall and Hotel. We popped our heads in anyway.
5) Random stupid pictures that we took on the way -

....trying to NOT get run over by a train
had some massive party last night... going back to sleep now... -yawn-

Of Singing, Shopping and Spring Showers

2006-03-21T02:47:00.000-08:00

Nothing's much been happening since Amsterdam, hence my lack of entries. Still, it's been pretty relaxing.

Couple of days back we were at the only pub in the whole area called Batolome to watch a couple of friends perform. Guess what? We got to do the same as well! Wasn't very good. yeah, I wasn't very good, owing to the fact that I didn't know 2 of the 3 songs that we sang. haha. So, we actually bought a guitar yesterday to practise to put up a combined tauschie concert thingy sometime...hopefully... haha.
Went down to Wiesbaden yesterday in a bid to get our visas extended. We missed the train so we took a bus, but at the end, we were still late. Therefore, we gotta go back another day. That said, it was a fruitful day! We walked all around the city centre as it's still too cold to see the beautiful sights that will bloom in spring/summer. While waiting for Sabrina outside the New Yorker, me and Ben saw this group of old men. I swear they looked like those mafia dons. Echoes of "We'll make you an offer you cannot refuse" come to mind.
By some stroke of luck, we passed by a shop selling Levi's and other expensive jeans and right outside was a rack with a sale. The prices were just crazy. I bought a pair of Levi's and a pair of Lee Jeans for 15 Euros each. I'd have bought more but then there were no more sizes for me. Current tally, 3 pairs of jeans in 2 weeks for under 160 SGD. WOOOOHOOOOOO... but now must eat grass until i go Spain (Zara!) and Heidelberg (general shopping!) and Stuttgart (home of Hugo Boss and their warehouse). That said, i'll only buy stuff if it's really cheap. no point going into the boutiques where things are so bloody overpriced. Little shops off the main track, that's where it's at.Lastly, SPRING IS HERE!!! just had a couple of showers, which I don't really like, but the weather has been pretty awesome. Went for a jog to a nearby town two mornings ago and it was so enjoyable running up the hill and amidst the vineyards. Will bring my camera along next time.
Now then, I have two M&A projects to work on. gottagogottago

Quick Note.

2006-03-15T10:35:00.000-08:00

it's been a whirlwind trip to date, and I've had loads of experiences, good and bad. Just keepin' a prayer out for all at home to be safe and healthy.

And to the one who fell asleep early today, I'm looking forward seeing you again. =)

Day 6 - Antwerp and then back to Oestrich!

2006-03-15T03:05:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I was gonna squeeze out an extra day to travel in Belgium. Ben decided not to rush his travelling so he slept in and then came back to Germany himself. I hopped on the 9am train with my still-usable Eurail pass and went to Antwerp. Thanks to my shopping, I had only 25Euros in my pocket for food and sightseeing. (dun worry, mum and dad, I had my cards with me. Just wanted to see how I'd survive...)

First stop, tourist office and one euro down for a map and a very good guide to Antwerp. In that 5 hours I was there, I think I covered about 12km of walking with my backpack. Didn't help that my ankle was a bit busted already so I'm actually taking the next week in Germany easy. But I digress. Let's see how 20 euros carries you through the day...Breakfast was covered with bread and Nutella at Fangkai's place. Upon arriving, I followed the map to the first stop - The Cathedral of Our Lady (2 Euros), which has 4 genuine Ruben masterpieces (Ruben is to Antwerp what Andy Warhol is to New York). It's also reputed to be one of the nicest cathedrals in Europe and I was thoroughly impressed.Next up, I walked to the Maritime Museum but didn't enter it cos I just wanted to check out the castle-like exterior and hang out by the waterfront for a bit. That was kinda nice on its own.

I tried to go to St. Paul's Cathedral which is kinda out of the way but was sorely disappointed when I found out it opens only at 1400h. I actually went back at that time but it still wasn't open and if I delayed any longer, I might have missed the train back to Germany.

My last stop for the day was Ruben's House (4 Euros). Very interesting place with two wings that has one built in old Flemish style and the other in the Italian Renaissance style.
Well, I bought waffles for the chaps at the apartment (6 euros total), sent a couple of postcards (2 Euros), and had to spend an extra 6 Euros cos of the Express train, which left me with 4 euros for food the whole day. haha. Two cheeseburgers, a Waffle and a bottle of milk was good sustenance. Had to card the Neuhaus chocolates I bought as a result. heh... This was indeed an experience in itself, arriving back in Oestrich with 30 Euro cents in my pocket. But I'm alive and well, and had a good deal of sleep last night. Will talk more later, but first lunch!

Day 5 - solitary serenity

2006-03-15T02:24:00.000-08:00

so, my timetable got screwed over by the EBS when they cancelled one of my classes. As such, I couldn't do Brugges on Wednesday as planned. But I still decided to force an extra day of travel. This meant that I'd only be able to leave Amsterdam after 1900h on Monday to Belgium so that the Eurail Pass woul count towards the next day. Ben and Fangkai left in the morning and I went on to find things to do.

Something that I was told would be really interesting was the country side tour. I saw it on a brochure before and it cost 40Euros. That's abt 80 SGD for 4 1/2 hours. I managed to convince myself that it'd be worth it so I tried to get the ticket from the tourist office. Somehow, the ticket was actually only 25Euros and it was sold out. Me being me, i decided to go straight to the tour operator abt 1km away to squeeze out a space for me. Guess what? GOT IT!

This 4 1/2 hour tour basically comprised trips to some other villages which, though touristy and sometimes reconstructed purely for that reason, was absolutely beautiful. In some way, I'd consider this the true highlight of the entire 5 days. To a certain extent, it was nice to just walk around on my own, but yeah, as I say, it's just to a certain extent. I really wished this other Singaporean was with me to see these amazing sights...

Windmills and more windmills!!...in Marken and Volendam by the lake side...
The above was originally an ox-bow waterform which had links with both the North Sea and another freshwater inlet. The connection with the former meant that it was subject to tides and uncontrollable water levels, so they finally dammed it to get some control. But this also meant that the water from the freshwater inlet would only cause the levels to rise. As such, when the water rises, they channel water out from the lake, causing the saltwater to get more and more diluted. According to calculations, this lake, which is about 1400 sq.km will become a fully freshwater lake within 30 years. This completely changes the livelihood of the people. 10 years ago, you could easily see 100 fishing boats, but when we arrived, there were less than 10 at the docks. This is more a documentation of what I learnt, so if you're getting bored with this, do skip it. =)

Other parts of the tour, which was actually quite borin', was the tour to the clog and cheese factories. It was more a touristy thing than anythin' else.
Well, I got back at 1430h and had another 5 hours to burn before getting on my train, so i went walking the shopping streets myself. Bought 4 books on sale at this English bookstore (they're so difficult to find!) and then stumbled upon a store selling Diesel jeans between 20% and 80% discount. WOOHOO! got a pair for just 50Euros, which originally sells for 150Euros. The best part was that this shop was just beside the Diesel outlet. Got to know some Dutch girl as well, whose dad worked as a researcher in Singapore before, so that was kinda random too.

The most exciting portion of the day was the train trip back to Belgium. Apaprently we needed to validate oour ticket before getting on the train. I was already in Belgium and almost at my stop when this asshole of a trian conductor decided to give me major problems by taking my ticket away from me and demanding that I pay him 12.50 Euros to get it validated on the train. Of course I wouldn't agree cos the previous train conductor on the way up didn't have any problems with that. It's partly my fault too but his manner just irked me.

This argument ding-dong-ed for quite a while and the most irritating thing was that he had my ticket in hand and refused to return it. I was truly on the verge of killing the gay motherfucker. That's the thing with the Belgians that I could tell. They don't seem to like Asians very much. I caught on that this 12.5 Euros wasn't an authorised thing so I asked his name. His reply? "My name, my name. You shut up your big mouth." At that point, I decided to pull back a little cos his defensiveness revealed a bit of weakness. As it was, we went to Brussels Midi station and I got it validated for free. I was late to Leuven by abt an hour. Apparently Ben faced the same problem and they had to evade the train conductors for a good distance. In fact, he missed his train to germany, wasting a full Eurail trip worth 92SGD.

Maybe it's just me, but I had a reflection on this. When people have low power, they do whatever they can to flaunt that little bit of authority when they can, especially when others seem helpless. It was tempting at many junctures to tell him that I'm definitely educated enough to not want such trouble when I'm travelling, but that would be sinking to his level. I confess that I had such bad thoughts among others (e.g. getting the ticket confiscated, but getting his name and then proceed to make sure he gets sacked for being immensely rude) then but i've since driven them outta my mind.

I just needed a night of rest... Antwerp the next day, and in the next entry...

Day 3 & 4 - "Chino! Coca Coca!"

2006-03-15T01:14:00.000-08:00

Those were among the first words we heard when we arrived in Amsterdam. We stayed in two different hostels over two nights...

...at the Hotel Kabul...
...and the stairwell of the Youth Hostel Meeting Point
Amsterdam was highly fascinating to me, as a place that manages to thrive through a very divided culture. We stayed two minutes from the train station, and two minutes from the red-light district. Everywhere we walked in our neighbourhood, there were shops selling porn(which is abt the most normal thing abt the street, besides the food places)...
...shops selling Magic Mushrooms (natural LSD) and other substances (spanish fly, ephedra) which would be banned in any other normal country......and the so-called Baba Coffee shops which serves Space-Cakes (cakes with hash in them), marijuana joints, marijuana tea among other things. I was a bit dismayed to see that the cashier was a pregnant lady. the situation seems a bit sad that way but with this city, i learnt not to be surprised at a lot of things.

With such a seedy area being the focal point of the city, there's also an amazing array of art that flourished in Amsterdam, with artists such as Van Gogh, Carraviaggo, Rembrandt among others. We couldn't take pictures inside the museums so there's nothing here to show. =) That said, the museums here were sheer impressive as they had english descriptions, taking us through the journey of the artists' and the periods.
This was a sculpture that I really liked. It's of Cupid. Read the description that I took a picture of and you might understand why I think it's cool...

Just some pictures of the great scenery, both at the canals and just on the outskirts of the Centrum...
These were taken at the beautiful Vondel Park, which we stumbled upon, but were at that point unaware that it's actually one of the most famous in all of Europe...
...and then at the Flower market, which sells loads of tulips. For those interested, go read up on the history of Tulips in Holland and how it resembled bursting of the tech bubble in recent years...
Anne Frank's House was an experience in itself. The atmosphere was very sombre and it just harkens your senses to how it was, not just on a macro level, but to the individual. For those who know the story, I must say I felt most for the dad, who was not only put in the concentration camp, but upon emerging alive, he had to deal with the loss of his wife and then news of both daughters dying of typhus. I bet numerous people have diaries and stories to tell as well, but as one of the quotes expressed, if all of them did so, none of us might be able to live normally with so much sadness around. The following picture was a landmark that helped us find our way back before we went out. We kinda got bummed by this beggar who first told us how to get back and then proceeded to ask us for money... bah. I guess the most interesting thing abt this memorial was how phallic it was. In fact, the beggar chap called it the 'big white dick'. wth...
On the first night, we walked ard the red-light district. We can't take pictures in the area so apologies for the lack of pictures there. Went drinking too, and I think i drank a bit too much on the first night so I totally detoxxed the second day....

Day 1 & 2 - Onwards to Belgium!

2006-03-15T00:46:00.000-08:00

Our Eurail passes were delayed due to the incompetencies of the Frankfurt Customs. On the night before (Wednesday evening), I had a ball of a time asking the post office why an established state like germany needed so long to get our mail to us when it's not even a big parcel. Further, I told them that they were welcome to take a look inside the damn envelope cos it's not as if i could hide a bomb in there. If I didn't bug them, it'd take a further 2 weeks to get the stuff to me.

Somehow or other, they got their ass movin', and I got my stuff by the next morning at 11am. It was a big surprise and we were already planning to go to Mainz or Wiesbaden just to pass time. As it was, me and ben decided to just do the trip, and within 1 1/2 hours, we were packed, showered and on the train to Leuven! This trip would take us to Koblenz and then to Cologne and finally to Leuven. What we didn't know was that this certain train called Thalys wasn't covered under our Eurail passes, so we basically got bumped off at Aachen and then had to find an alternative train.

Train station at Aachen...
But, we finally reached Leuven at 1930h and proceeded to a night of kebab dinner, some drinks and fries with ketchup, mayo and onions. simply shiok.
Had a good night's sleep and then we went for a walk in the morning around Leuven.
The three of us - Ben, Fangkai and I - had an interesting breakfast that comprised the following:
1) Belgian Waffles2) Escargots3) PastriesWe finally made it to Brussels, which is damn touristy. Some parts of it was nice, of course, as the pictures will show, but otherwise, it's just expensive and not particularly entertaining. We did a couple of museums - the Museum of Modern and Ancient Art; and we just bummed around in the lobby of the Museum of cartoons. We didn't enter the latter proper just cos we don't exactly know a lot of the cartoons.

1) the Manneken Pis, somewhere that all visitors apparently have to take a look at, even if it's at an inconspicuous corner of town
2) me, Figan and Ben at a nice spot to take pictures
3) a larger-than-life Smurf at the lobby of the Museum of Cartoons4) This Smurf chess set was actually damn nice, but so was the price...5) the Notre Dame Cathedral, which doesn't look anyway as cool as the one in Paris...

Exciting Times in Benelux

2006-03-15T00:45:00.000-08:00

Suffice it to say that the past 5 days were extremely exciting in terms of unexpected plans and getting out of scrapes. There's so much so say so I shall split it all up into different sections. Just follow me on the little journey that we made.

BerlinBerlinBerlinBerlin

2006-03-06T04:03:00.000-08:00

Berlin was a very interesting experience from the very start. We were delayed abt 4 hours on the bus due to snow which led to bloody slow traffic, but nonetheless we had fun with snowfights and chatting with each other.

Snowball War!!!!!

People trying to drink beer from a chain of McDonald's strawsMe, Lara, Diogo and GuerhiemWith our South African friends, Rudi and Andsi

Well, when we got there, we found ourselves at the Berlin International Youth Hostel. It was past 12, but no, that did not stop us from going to a place called the Havana Club! It was a li'l shady and everyone was tired, so we had kind of an early night. That said, we still had a bundle of fun. Gotta relate this one: these few young german punks came to interrupt our dancing circle and when we decided that we wanted to ignore them, they went up to Conrad, said something in German , which ended with the words "Battle! Battle!" Like, WTF! stupid fellas wanted a dance-off and they waited for us to agree. Well, they were halfway there in that they waited , cos we never agreed. hahaha.

There was also a Salsa section. Looks damn nice. Think I'm gonna pick that up again when I get home, and I know exactly who to ask! =P

The lobby and corridors of our hostel...At the party with the gang....

Well, the next day we got up bright and early for a morning walk before the actual guided tour. I must say that it's very ncie to walk through a park which has snowy paths and just soak in the atmosphere. Possibly very romantic, but then it's germany, which ain't the most romantic place, i'm afraid. Anyhow, there were some elements of Asia, such as this dome over a shopping area that's supposed to resemble Mt. Fuji from the side. I thought it resembled any other volcano... Some pictures from the morning...
A frozen little river...At the Russian Memorial...Posterkids for good French genes...Then we had our guided tour. I'd post more pictures but then they're with some other pple, so maybe I'll put them on tonight or something. It was a good though quick 2 hour tour. We hit the Brandenberger Gates, the Reichstag (where parliament sits) and went past other spots such as the Jewish Memorial - which consists of 2711 concrete slabs - and parts of the Berlin Wall. I'd have liked to check out the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp but we didn't have time for that. Guess I'll check some other Con-Camps in another place. We went to a flea market as well but nothing to buy there, for me at least, and then proceeded onto the main shopping street. German stuff is just too freakin' expensive. Compared to Singapore, their Hugo Boss shirts are much cheaper at abt 160 SGD, but that's still way off my budget. Dammit.

The Reichstag - Check out the Dome. The detailed pictures of the interior are below...
An inverted mirror pyramid reflects natural light into the parliamentary seats below, and around it is a path that allows visitors to ascend...This is right at the top of the Dome, with an opening that lets people like us lie down and allow snow to land right on top of us...
The Brandenberger Gates, which used to separate Old Berlin and the forest...
The double-cobbled line marks the route of the Berlin Wall throughout the entire of Berlin...Sections of the Berlin Wall...
The Jewish Memorial...

Well, that night was also one of the strangest experiences ever. Fabian wanted to bring us to some electronica place. Turned out that it was in the dodgiest club I'd ever seen, smack in a old warehouse with a multiple-pierced doorman and industrial decor to boot. Also, we found out that it was a f**kin gay club. Well, not exactly just a gay club cos Berlin is very gay and lesbian friendly, but nevertheless it was damn strange to see bare-bodied muscle-bound guys making out. To add to that there were some guys in leather with their asses sticking out kissin each other. We still stayed on another floor (which wasn't as gay) till abt 4 before we left. Couple others stayed till abt 7am before we saw them again.

Drinks before the club......the path to the club......morning after picture of Diogo and Ben...

Most of the chaps decided to have an easy day but a few of us wanted to do a bit more touring... Therefore, Conrad, Rudi, Alvin and I embarked on a 4 hour walk, which exceeded 10km to see the Bergamon Museum (which we affectionately called the Pokemon Museum), the Reichstag and some other stuff before we left...

The Thinkers in front of the Berliner Dome...The exhibits at the Bergamon Museum were nothing short of amazing, with some stuff from the Babylonian empire, and then an assembled area which used to be the Sacrifical Altar....
Something we passed by that seemed to show the Swastika. Not sure what it was tho...
A busker along the streets playing using water-filled glasses to make music. It was damn good!!
Our trip back was much faster at abt 8 hours. Snuck some McDonald's chicken burgers on for dinner so I managed to keep from going hungry. The show As Good As It Gets on the return trip was also nice... For those who haven't watched it, get it.

It's time for lunch. Spent more than an hour on this... -rumbling tummy- Brussels and Amsterdam this weekend. I'm looking forward to that!

SNOW!!!!

2006-03-06T03:23:00.000-08:00

so, the morning of my disastrous german paper, it snowed so heavily! Me and Ben went to take pictures cos it was just so nice! We also learnt from a couple of our mates how to slide on the snow. haha. that was fun although the precariousness of almost falling made me a bit more cautious.just to show how heavy it was!

The Burg campus of the EBS

Cars were kinda snowed in

Berlin Here We Come!

2006-03-03T03:32:00.000-08:00

so, I just had my german exam. A wonderful disaster. I hope I pass. will only know next friday so I'll put that somewhere in the back of my head.

That aside, it was snowing so beautifully this morning. An absolute spectacle. We even had enough snow during the break to have a mini-snowfight on our way to and from the bakery. I would show you pictures but I haven't got the cable.

We're heading to Berlin in an hour so all entries and photos will have to wait till Monday. It's a 7 hour ride and according to Tim and Lara, we should all get pretty high with happy juice by the time we arrive. Let's see how that rides.

Tschüss!

Morning Surprise!

2006-03-01T04:29:00.000-08:00

so, ben and I had a tremendous meal of vegetarian fried rice and then we shared a bottle of wine. That facilitated an early night's slumber cos I wanted to get up early to come down to school. Well, I got up a little too early at 0530h so by the time I left the house, it was only 0700h... surprisesurprise, it had snowed the night before sufficiently to see white all around! Thankfully it wasn't too deep so it wasn't that dirty. Went to the vineyard behind our place to take some pictures while the rest were asleep and then went on to school.
I'm still in German class now and we have some presentation later. and we're unrehearsed. dammit.

Carneval!

2006-03-01T03:31:00.000-08:00

so we skipped german on Rose Monday and went for Carneval. I would tell u abt the history except that no one knows exactly what it is. Think about Chingay and then multiply it by 20 in magnitude and add a massive dose of trash and broken bottles (look at the carnage around Ben) and there you have it.
The police told us the parade was supposed to last an hour. It ended up lasting 4 hours! The most spoken word was "HELAU!" which means nothing and the people on the floats threw out sweets, stickers among other dingdangs. I really liked the different themed floats...

from fancy dressed individuals....
...to the colonial army...
...and chicks (this is from Sabrina's cam, not mine)...
...to cuter stuff...
...to satires
it ended with a massive street party at TWO locations and it was utterly filled with people!

Frankfurt Part Deux!

2006-02-28T00:20:00.000-08:00

so, we went to frankfurt again on Saturday. We were originally supposed to go by ourselves but as it turned out, there were quite a few other tauschies (exchange students) who wanted to go there so we hitched a ride (it's an hour's drive away) and we ended up moving along tog!

Basically we walked around...

into churches... out on the streets,

along banks' buildings
meeting the Prince and Princess of Carneval(the event in my next entry)

...and then finally into a pub...

...or two...
It was just fun to hang out with the other chaps! Carneval entry next. but first, i need to go for german class. ugh.

Wiesbaden!

2006-02-25T03:01:00.000-08:00

So, we were supposed to have a field trip yesterday, not unlike a typical excursion in Singapore that requires us to answer questions, except that this wasn't to Science Centre or the Zoo, but rather to Wiesbaden, a neighbouring town, and the questions were in German. My group was a bundle of fun! Some French chaps, a Belarussian, a South African and then me, a Singaporean.

Well, in typical exchange student fashion, we ended up spending more time playing on playgrounds...

...and doing a bit of sightseeing (which is really nice, by the way) and shopping(no pictures)...

...and then lastly ending up at a little pub on the street when we got thirsty

Well, there's also this major celebration taking place all the way till Wednesday. It's called Carneval and it's celebrated throughout Germany, with the three largest celebrations in Cologne, Dusseldorf and Mainz, in decreasing order of magnitude. Mainz is only abt a 30 minute train ride away so we might go there. But then again, Cologne is THE PLACE to be in. Soooooo, we might just skip german class and make the 2 hour trip there. hmmmm... what to do what to do...

Germinology

2006-02-24T00:23:00.000-08:00

apologies for the lack of posts. So, yet again nothing spectacular has happened this week cos it's the middle of term for the Bachelor students and the term hasn't yet started for the Diplom-Kaufman (for us). We did cook a chicken rice dinner for our buddies and created a bloody stinking mess in the kitchen cos we were using small pots and pans for 8 people. But it's fine now, and everyone is happy for it. Amazingly the germans have never eaten this kind of chicken rice, and neither have they ever tasted pork floss. They're inviting us to eat their traditional stuff soon so I'm also looking forward to that. yumyum!

we're also trying to plan for our courses now. I hate SMU's stupid requirement for tech and entrepreneurship. such a pain in the ass to plan for. Ugh. Anyhow, I have german class now and I'm still waiting for the Office of International Relation's reply. hope that works out soon so that I can start making travel plans. 6 weeks of travel, split into 3 sets of 2-weeks each. Eurotrip, dun fail me now!

Day 6

2006-02-21T00:12:00.000-08:00

Not been doing very much since the last entry. Had a damn good homecooked meal at home. bratwurst fried with mushrooms with kebab on the side and cherry tomatos to top it off. excellent eh? oh yah, the wine's so bloody cheap, we have it at least once a day.
had a exchange students' welcome party last night. It came in two sessions, one was a dinner at this little place with pretty good wine, as the pictures below show, and then a party kinda thing at the CAFTA, which is the student pub thingy.

my table

conrad doing his impression of zoolander
another table of canadians, russian, german and portuguese

Hungarians, Singaporean and French

guy second from left is damn good looking. me and ben agree on that. haha.

geoffrey, clara, me

geoffrey, me, lara

portuguese boys

i didn't have an exchange buddy and apparently she didn't have someone to host, so i now have a buddy. meet Katarina!

ben, francois (his buddy), me

alvin sleeping in the toilet pissed drunk.

photo before we left.

time for german class. ciao dudes.

Photos to date!

2006-02-19T02:42:00.000-08:00

a good ole' bratwurst burger with lots of ketchup and mustard to end off a day of fast walking(to catch the train), freezing in the cold, and shopping!

bloody awesome sights. The Deutsche Bank buildings behind him, i mean, not the dead guy.

me and Ben on the bridge over the Main River. If you look hard enough, you'll see us

Me and sabrina giving the bear some lurrvvee

ben, always fighting, even with a toy bear

pretty little area in the middle of frankfurt.

took this picture while under attack by hailstones, not big ones thankfully.

The Last Supper!

Just thought this was a cool picture to take.

the Frankfurt-Main Train station.

the boys at the Frankfurt-Main station

The Schloss (castle) again. I'm making the place look much better than it does in real life.

The EBS Schloss campus, where we are probably having lessons

The railway track which stands in our way between apartment and school. Stops us at the most opportune times, i.e. Rain and Chilling Wind.

Had lunch at this little place. the food wasn't great. basically sausages and pork chops.

Us finding cardboxes to hold groceries when we remember,

albeit too late that Europeans bring their own bags.

ALDI - the supermarket that we go to

Alvin, Me and Ben in my 'massive' 'room'.

the day before school starts!

2006-02-19T02:29:00.000-08:00

so, it's been four days since we arrived. place is pretty quiet with a smallish population. Chronologically, we touched down on Thursday morning at abt 6 a.m. and went to our apartment in Oestrich Winkel. First up it's truly a bloody small town. At first we felt a bit cheated with our apartment. We were told there were three rooms at 11, 15 and 40 square metres respectively. The third one would be shared among two pple. What we didn't know was that the living room also counts as a room in itself. This means that me and Ben now stay in the hall while Alvin and Sabrina have a room to themselves each.

We also have no internet access at home just yet which explains why our online presence is limited. I don't think we've really been doing much else besides grocery shopping and getting to know the area better. Perhaps some of the more interesting stuff to date was our first basketball game with the EBS students. They're so bloody fit it's crazy. Both me and Ben successfully pulled muscles and twisted our ankles in the one hour game of sprinting back and forth. Our exchange hosts have been excellent. Will post pictures of them as soon as we snap shots with them.

We also went by train to Frankfurt yesterday. Glad to say I now know how to use the train system around these parts. Now I gotta find out how to move to places like Munich and Berlin cheaply. Had our first clubbing session last night which turned out to be a bore cos our hosts didn't exactly like the place much so we decided to cut the night short and wait for the other exchange students to arrive this week before we start the late nights!

Oh well, time to go to the supermarket! We're hosting a chicken rice gathering tonight! whee.