...to Mannheim, Germany! (Part 2/3)

For once, the title of the post is REAL. We REALLY didn't have a map to get here, and instead of taking an hour like Michelle predicted, we took 3 hours to get here. And missed two trains, and took an hour to buy train tickets, with much help from the friendly Germans! Seriously. Adventure of a lifetime. Sorry friends, you shall have to hear how long and arduous our journey was for many many years ahead. I don't even know if we were travelling north or south or what.

To begin from the beginning, we left Candy's house at 1130AM, made our way to Victoria station, took an Easybus to Stansted Airport, took RyanAir to Zweibrucken, took a bus to the Hauptbahnhopf, then got STUCK at that place for almost two hours. Good that the falafel place Michelle brought us to rocked and we ate for the first time in 12 hours (during which time we talked alot about PHO and hainanese chicken rice and hokkien mee and duck rice). Indeed. What a day (It is now 2am and Fiona Koo I just called you!!).

Going to the Black Forest tomorrow and we have to wake up at 7am to get to the town centre and see the fountains with water! It's spring! And this whole daylight savings plus change of timezones thing is really screwing up my sense of time.

Nevertheless, I think I like Germany. No more dystopian society here!

...cos of Daylight Savings AGAIN.

I think I wrote earlier on about the effect of losing an hour, to sleep to study to do everything.

And it has happened AGAIN! in London! Argh.

Before coming on exchange I never experienced Daylight Savings. It was some far distant concept that would never affect my life.

Now, I've experienced it twice in 3 months. Ridiculous.

So where does all the time go?

After-Exchange Tour Around the World Part 1/3

(Photos and details when I get back to Singapore cos this place is freaking cold)

Finally I get to touch a computer! Candy's computer! I'm currently in her house in southeast London, and it's kinda surreal.We've never spent more than a few hours together ever since graduating from secondary school. And now we're gonna meet Michelle and spend a whole week altogether!

Yvette and Xiao Yun have gone back to their respective countries of exchange, namely Irvine, CA, USA and Grenoble, France. It's a bit weird, like the past 4 days in Paris and 4 days in London were all a dream.

Nevertheless, we had a blast! Paris was just too much to cover in 4 days alone. We did all the touristy stuff like the River Seine Cruise and the Eiffel Tower and Disneyland (Which compares BADLY to the Anaheim one), but also saw the Louvre and the Musee D'Orsay for intellectual stimulation. Tip: The Louvre is free for people under 26years on Fridays after 6pm! It was fun taking underground transport again and just walking around a city without worrying about parking. It was not fun however, converting everything in Euros to USD and then to Sing$. Heart attacks all around. And empty stomachs too cos we practically survived on bread.

We stayed in a 3 star hotel near the Gare de Lyon (Major train/RER/metro stop) so it was quite convenient and easy to find on the first day. XY arrived from Grenoble at that station too and found us severely jetlagged in the hotel room. Rats, plan to surprise her at the lobby - FAIL.

Alright, long story short for now, to be edited at a later date cos i gotta check my mail and apply for internship n special sem and whatnot.

so then we went to london and finally got our own beds (xy n i had to share in paris) then we visited all the touristy stuff in TWO days only but the markets were like awesome la. nice food!! singaporean stuff. West End on two nights. better transport. EVERYTHING IN PLAIN SIMPLE ENGLISH.

and now they're gone. and I'm still here. and the surreal world goes on.

(I miss the US. can't wait to go to Canada! all the touristy stuff's too overrated.)