exam week argh

hey peeps. i know it seems like im more of a tourist than a student. haha BUT i am on SEP and i still have to take exams!!! so although tons have happened since that looong road trip, i will only post them after my exams:) last paper on 23rd july, wed. CAN’T WAIT!

spoilers: my fren from stuttgart came over to visit ME or maybe Munich. whichever. but we had so much fun cos we went to zugspitze and neuschwanstein!!! zugspitze is this mountain in bavaria, highest point in germany at 2962m. neuschwanstein is that fairy-tale castle, which yes i went before but this time i have fantabulous photos bcos of the GREEEAAT weather.  and i finally went for the free munich walking tour! which was really fun too. at least now i know some history of the place that i have been staying in for 4 months now.

im really sad i have to sell my wonderful bike. i actually considered bringing it back. HAH but its too damn hot in singapore to cycle!
i have already found a buyer, using toytowngermany.com, this great forum of english-speaking people in germany. and im selling it at the price i bought. heh. so no loss ya.
apparently bikes are real hot! i sold it 1hour after posting the advert!
here’s a picture of it as i promised long time ago!

ok i’ll write real soon!! n i promise to put in nicer photos of vienna, berlin and the road trip~
ciao!!
*sherms*

loonggg road trip

ok on thur evening, 26th june, my frens and i went on  a road trip!!! we planned this during our prague trip when we were watching F1 Monaco Grand Prix at some cafe! so the prague gang then decided to go to monaco, and we thought since its super small, around 2 square kilometers, we will couple it with nice in france!

so we rented a car and drove there, since it will be much cheaper than to fly or to take a train there. gosh but tons of things happened along the way! it was quite a crazy trip. we had to first go to freiburg to pick up another fren, then continue down to nice, where we already booked 2 nights of hostel. we left munich about 8pm, and reached her place in freiburg around midnight! anyway the plan was to drive through the night and we should reach nich about 7am:)

here’s my fren, jh driving! we got a Volkswagen Golf, 4-door but with a small boot which we had trouble figuring out how to open!! wasted much time there. haha.

BUT to get to nice, we had to cut through switzerland and italy, according to google maps, which helps u find the shortest route possible. isnt that ridiculous!! not only that, swiss and italien roads have many tolls! only the great german autobahns (also with no speed limits) have no tolls. so we drove through switzerland, got stopped at the border just for normal passport checks and to buy the swiss toll ticket, then continued on. n cos we were so used to the german roads, we travelled at the same speed and *flash*, think we got caught on camera on the swiss roads. damn. but we havent heard no news about that until now. fingers crossed.

and after a while, another fren, kh lost the papers that we had printed the google maps directions on! along with his keys. so we turned back to the customs checkpoint cos he thought he left it there. but NO, the helpful border police did not find it either. n he had padlocked his bag, so he needed his KEYS, which he currently could not find, to open it. after much time wasting again, he decided to squeeze his hand into the small gap btn the zips on his bag n he found his keys, and the papers! greeatttt.

so on we go! this time i took over. hmm havent driven a manual tranmission for a while, so took some time to warm up. then guess wat. somehow there was some detour off the highway due to road works, so we could not follow the directions we had. and this tour was WEIRD. it brought us into the SWISS MOUNTAINS! the car was practically crawling, with all of us and our baggage. and it was in the middle of the night, around 3am, really dark outside. and suddenly, the right front wheel hit something. maybe i was too tired n stoning, but i really did not see it!~ just meters away there was a pit stop so we stopped. and found out the tyre was totally FLAT, with the hubcap gone. so went back to pick up the hub cap, with some parts broken, and saw that we hit some rock on the road! it was freeeezzzing when we came out. but we had to change the tyre! so no choice. anyway the sun comes up at about 4plus, 5am, so it was already turning bright.

here’s us taking out the spare tyre from the boot! snow everywhere! n we were dressed wrongly, for the sunny nice/monaco. but guess we were all kinda used to the cold, so no problemo!

so after we were done with changing the tyre, and taking some gorgeous photos (that i unfortunately havent received from my fren), and also some snowball fights, we continued! at this point, the sun was already coming up.
bad news: even after changing the tyre, the right front portion of the car made weird klinging noises everytime we turned. so we stopped again, to check if all the bolts were tight.

2nd pit stop.
great view here!! the car is on the extreme right lane, prob cant see cos its too small.

unfortunately we found out nothing was wrong with it, after double checking the tyre! so off we go!

the noise was kinda annoying and scary though, we had no choice to stop a 3rd time when we saw houses along the way. n we thought, hmm switzerland right. great they speak german! mayb we could ask for help.

3rd pit stop. sun was up up up! cool but sunny weather. very different view! more green now! since we were coming down the mountains already, and we saw signs to milan, which was where we were headed.

we were really unlucky! the people in the house spoke italian. then we realised we were lost among the italian-speaking part of switzerland. so our german was utterly useless here. anyway we at least found out from their basic english/german that there was a garage just 10mins drive down so we drove super slowly down the mountain. and we found it! at least there was hope. n it was already 730am! saw that the garage only opened at 8am so we just waited.
they were really helpful, they told us that the inner shaft was bent/broken, so the tyre was not in the centre of the wheel arch, hence the stupid noise. anyway they said it was fine to continue driving, they asked us to drive to the SIXT in lugarno, the nearest branch of our car rental company. but that was 2hrs away and we did not know if we should risk it with the noisy car.

but we drove down about 10mins to the city centre/train station of this place, which we found out was AIROLO, and managed to get the number of SIXT in lugarno. we called them n they said they would send some people down soon, so we could only wait. and all this calling was drying up our prepaid cards/phone batt one by one. it was so difficult to tell them where we were!!! in some ulufied town in switzerland. bleah.

while waiting, we walked around the town, and wanted to check out the supermarkets. on the lift up, we got trapped!!! shit! like as if we werent already kinda stranded. luckily the supermarket staff forced open the door for us. after that i found out he was employee of the month. cos his picture was stuck on the wall. haha but the things there were all in swiss francs, and were really expensive!

anyway there was this guy who came with a truck, around 1030am, and asked us to follow him to his garage. amazingly he is italian but spoke some german (same standard as me so it was great!) think SIXT called him. so we followed him, and there we called sixt again, who said they will send a replacement car! we were thinking, oh thats really nice of them! so we all waited again…hungry, tired and bored.

here’s us at the garage! waiting for the replacement car that never came!

anyway around 1pm we were SOOOO sick of waiting, we called SIXT in lugarno. n no one was around at the garage, cos u know, italians. slackers too. took a really long lunch break or something. anw now the guy  at sixt in lugarno asked us to take a train down from airolo to lugarno where we could pick up the replacement car. after all this waiting!!! so we walked back up to the train station and bought train tickets to lugarno at 2pm, about €18.

luckily all of us brought tons of snacks and sandwiches and stuff, and bcos of this which i call my magic fountain, we did not dehydrate! it seemed like mountain water!

this is the beautiful town of airolo!

we were actually quite glad that we could relax for a while, and most of us just slept since we did not catch much sleep the night before. but also trying to take in the pretty sights along the way, like this!
u can see there’s some chair lift up the mountain, so i guess its prob a ski resort in winter!

and here’s lugarno! its another pretty italian-speaking town in switzerland.
at first we didnt even know if its in swiss or italy. haha.

and finally we have good news! the replacement car was a BMW 3 series!!! damn cool ya!! super funky! think they gave it to us bcos it is a munich registered car and since we were gonna drive it back to munich… hahah n this car we had trouble starting the engine. too high-tech la, these german cars. not even a key hole! it was just some black remote control looking thing where u stick into this slot, step on the clutch and brake, and press this ‘start/stop engine’ button. seriously. but we were finally back on track on our road trip!! woooooott~~

this is already in italy, around 7pm, where we stopped by to get some dinner. felt really gross tho, after 1 day of not showering, we were all sticky. n actually at the italian checkpoint we got stopped by them too. super annoying italian policemen, who refused to speak english!!!! n we got stopped bcos my dear frens were taking photos at the checkpoint n that was obviously not allowed. he made us delete the photos of cos.

but im good. here’s a shot i sneakily took. he did not ask me to delete photos cos he did not see me taking it. heh. u can see the italian flag and the EU flag.

by this time i was already super tanned, cos vienna and berlin was really hot too!! n i was only gonna get darker.

here’s me driving the BMW!! it can go up to 260kmh!! but of cos only on the great german roads.
the italian/swiss/french roads are all terrible!

italian ones had too many tunnels and was too curvy, pretty hard to drive esp with heavy traffic. and they all have tolls!! spent hell lots of money there.

anyway at this point i was worrying about the hostel. i dunno if they would keep it for us since we did not arrive by check-in time or if they would give up the beds. but oh well, we thought reach there then say.
of cos we were not that lucky, after the series of unfortunate events, we reached nice around midnight!!! and reached the hostel, followed some others in cos we had no key, n saw that the reception had closed at 11pm. behind the recept had this door with a sign on it that said no knocking after 11pm! if not there would be a €50 fine for waking up the staff. lame right. but heck, we knocked n knocked but got no answer. we were so in need of a shower at least!

so that night, poor us, we slept in the car!! all 5 of us. at first 4, cos one guy wanted to sleep on the beach. but of cos after a while he started freezing n came back to the car. hahaha can u imainge? 2 nights without proper sleep!!

anyway here’s the beautiful nice beach the next morning! when we got up, just before going back to the hostel! we were so glad we finally made it to nice!!! although we were like 17hrs behind our planned schedule…

anyway we went to hostel, and they sold off our beds on the internet cos we did not appear. oh well, there goes the 10% deposit. and they did not have 5 beds available, only 3 beds and a twin room which was really expensive! so we decided to just take the 3 beds. the 2 others slept in the car that night! so after showering and getting some breakfast at last, we went out! decided to go to monaco that day. was already saturday and we had planned to head back home on sunday evening!!

here’s us fresh on saturday morning at the beautiful nice beach!

we then walked to the bus station to take a bus down to monaco. only costs €1 one way!
monaco, which is obviously a place for the rich, was absolutely gorgeous!!
nice ports with thousands of boats, and of cos we went to see the nice casino!

and bcos its so small, the buildings are all high-rise like singapore and its the most densely-populated country in the world. singapore comes second. heh.

we also checked out the castle! we missed the guard changing tho.

and of cos when u hav rich people, u have nice cars too! here’s me with an aston martin.

another interesting fact: monaco has the same flag as indonesia!!! just that the size is a little differnt, theirs is more squarish. hahah.
another pic of the tiny city!

here’s the carpet at the entrance of the casino! photography was not allowed inside…

u can see the casino in the reflection yeah…

anw it got so hot we called it a day and went back to nice to have dinner!
here’s us at the nice nice beach!

actually the beaches there are not filled with sand, but with huge pebbles/stones, so it wasnt that comfortable. u had to kind of arrange them to make a comfortable spot. haha but after a while we all actually fell asleep on the beach! haha. n also bcos we had to go back to the hostel after 11pm, ie after the reception closes bcos we only paid for 3 beds, but all 5 of us had to use the facilities. so…

the next day we just walked around nice! went up to this chateau that overlooks the city!

anyway we decided to leave nice early, before lunchtime. n mayb stop by at the nice cities on the way back! like eze, villefrance, or avignon.
here’s us playing in the water in eze!

n the unlucky me actually got stung by a jellyfish!! but luckily it wasnt that serious. cos when i felt it i quickly quickly swam away!! it really stung tho!! and it swelled too:(

after all that playing, we left eze, and stopped by at avignon for dinner!! very small and quiet town, and we thought we could mayb catch the euro finals!! but we left at half-time, if not we were afraid we would not make it back to munich on time!!
guess what happened next. we got caught speeding along the french roads. hahah. like many times already yeah. i wasnt driving!!!

this is where we were escorted to from the highway. a french police station. they’re called gendarmerie there. n we had to pay a €90 fine! n it started to hail too! quite painful if u get hit by it!! cant believe the things that happened!!

ok thankfully nothing funny happened on the rest of our way back, so we made it safely home to munich! i think after this road trip, i have experienced all kinds of crap that can happen when u travel!!! but it was really exciting!!!! ciao~ super tired after writing about this la.

wien (vienna), berlin

ok i havent been updating this cos i’ve been super lazy. n also bcos the friend i travelled with has a canon eos slr so most of the photos are with him and i havent gotten them bcos my laptop is already low on disk space!!! my europe 2008 photos are currently at like 30GB. bleah. so i have to delete tons of stuff!
but i think so many things have happened i should just do it or else i myself wil forget about it soon!!!!
so i’ll just post some pictures and caption them heh.

here’s the update for the vienna trip from 20 to 22 june! the famous thing in vienna is actually the viennese boys choir, which i wanted to catch a show of, but they didnt have one when i was there so too bad! but it’s a beautiful city of music and culture, so there’s still tons to see! n of cos there’s the famous wiener schnitzel which is actually a veal cutlet, but nowadays is usually chicken or pork, which is cheaper.

anw during the time we were there euro 2008 matches were going on there! so the police were everywhere and the atmosphere was great. some croatien fans even gave us free pretzels cos they were drunk. haha. but of cos i always welcome free food.

here’s a pic of the police near the fanzone during the croatia-turkey match on 20june!

n here’s a pic just outside the fanzone! bustling with a thousand fans! but we didnt go in cos we’d rather sightsee!

n here’s some pretty building that i took from inside another colourful building. the outer one is actually just made of red bricks, called gasometer, which is some shopping centre.

oh n we went to visit this cemetery, where mozart, bach, strauss are all buried. but unfortunately i dont have the photos cos there are all with my fren! will edit the post once i get hold of them. hopefully my comp doesnt crash.

n i also dont have the photos of the huge wiener schnitzel that we ate for only €5,80! there were 2 huge cutlets that even I could not finish!!!!

k since im so lazy i shall combine the berlin trip together with this! oh ya i took the mitfahr (carpool) to berlin alone! on 23june cos my fren had class n only came the next day! its the cheapest way! only €25 from munich to berlin. train would cost at least €49 one way. so i toured alone on the 23, then met my fren on the 24th!

again i dont have many photos bcos i travelled with the same guy and i just asked him to take everything hahah cos his pictures are nicer!

here’s part of the berlin wall that was on display at potsdamer platz!

and here’s the brandenburg gate, a famous landmark in berlin.
bcos of the euro, there is this coca-cola fanzone set up around it where they have public screening of the matches!

this is the reichstag, the parliament building from the outside.
entry is free and view from above is gorgeous!

this is a monument to commemerate the murdered jews of europe during the holocaust.

here’s us satisfied after eating at some doener kebab place in berlin! as recommended in lonely planet. it claims to be the creator of the great doener in germany!

this is part of the east side gallery, another place in berlin showcasing part of the remains of the berlin wall! we also wrote our names on an empty part of it. heh.

there is this world clock in alexander platz where u can find the country names on it specifying which time zone they are in!!

this is the amazing berliner dom (berlin cathedral)! there were nice grass patches around it where everyone lazes around on to enjoy the nice summer day! so we did the same:)

here’s a nice panorama from the top of the parliament building!!

and here’s the pretty sunset from the same place!

hopefully i will have the motivation to edit this horrid post with more exciting pictures when i get them from my fren!!

bye for now! next post wil be up tomorrow cos i was travelling that entire week. hahahah.
next trip is to nice/monaco and thats a real long story…

konstanz, freiburg. 6-9june.

ok on fri aftn i went to stuttgart again! cos on sat morning i was going with my stuttgart frens to konstanz, another part of germany where there was a nice lake and boat rides!

too bad we had gloomy skies again, and it was really cold! but the river was really nice!
the river cruises were not very cheap tho, so we did not take any.

there was this really nice hotel tho, and here’s a pic of all of us!!

instead we took a bus to this place called mainau island!
which had many many many flowers!!
this smiley flower thing below is made entirely of flowers and leaves! n its HUGE.

anyway for lunch, all 5 of us shared this huge ‘family thing’ meal cos it was the cheapest!
it contained 8 pork fillets, and 1kg of fries!!!
obviously we could not finish the fries and had to pack them heh. seriously unhealthy yeah.

after lunch, back to sightseeing! this peacock and the dwarf below is also made entirely out of flowers!!

here’s all of us playing around in the island!

pretty purple flowers!!! a whole wall of them!

here i am outside the butterfly house! they managed to make the environment really tropical, so it was really nice and warm for a little while.

feny and i on the nice seat in the butterfly house.

there was some beautiful rose garden!

more and more flowers!!! they have all kinds of roses and their flowers are huge too!
there was even one that smelt like bandung!!

n they had this hammock that was super comfortable!!
kinda didnt wanna get up after walking so much…

and as with all these nice parks, there were cute animals toO!
here we were able to feed and pet them, it costs only €0.20 to buy some food and feed them!!

we left konstanz on the same evening for our friend’s place in freiburg, where we all camped for the night!
the next morning, we went hiking! freiburg is in the region of the schwarzwald (blackforest), where it is said the blackforest cakes originated.

here’s all of us the next morning! before the start of the hike!
weather was quite good!!

this field marks the start of our hike! our favourite jumping shots heh.

a panorama i made of this field.

in front of some cosy little guesthouse/hotel we found along the way.

there were actually people staying around here! nice scenery and streams flowing, really cooL!

here’s us in the middle of the jungle!

me on the narrow trail.
seriously if we accidentally slipped n rolled down, i dont know wat would happen.
actually some parts were really too narrow we could not do anything else but watch our step so photos only on nice n easy to walk spots!!

along the way, where we stopped to eat sandwiches.

some nice views from high up!

at this point, it was already 1015m!!

ME at this spot! 2 more steps backward and its doomsday…

a group shot! in front of the railing this time, cos its safer.

i already stitched up a panorama of the awesome view from this point but the file is too big to be uploaded here!!
another nice scenic view of the surroundings from another high vantage point, with the road below!

the literally black forest behind us on the way down.

nearing the end of our hike, it started to rain! luckily most of us brought our brollys.
since we’re all used to the stupid fluctuating weather conditions

at the end of the hike! back to ground level. bcos of the rain we walked super fast at the end!

tired but glad! we hiked from hinterzarten to himmelreich, and it was about 18km!!
according to the staff at the tourist info. n it took us a little less than 5hours!

finally after the calorie-burning afternoon, we treated ourselves to some nice desert!
this is some guest house (gasthaus) at himmelreich, a cosy little cafe/restaurant.

us in the warm place, resting our kaputt feet.

i had blackforest cake, duh and tea! and it was such a huge piece!
which definitely put my whole aftn of walking to waste! talk about burning fats.

we all had tons of fun! tho tiring but was a great experience!!

that night the stuttgarters went back home, so just me and the other guy from munich stayed over in freiburg at our fren’s place!

here’s us the next day, with very tired ankles, at the freiburg city centre.
thankfully for her, we managed to save on food and lodging for 2 nights!!
this is some vineyard!

these are some small waterways that run all through the altstadt (old city) of freiburg.
according to the legend, anyone who steps into it is destined to stay in freiburg all his life n marry a freiburger hahahah. wat nonsense stuff people come up with huh.

here’s us after climbing yet another tower to enjoy the sights of the city!!
seriously i think i hav super muscular legs by now. heh.

n in this schwarzwald region, besides being famous for the blackforest cakes, they are also known for producing lots of fruit-flavoured alcohol! especially kirschwasser (cherry water literally), which is some cherry flavored alcohol that they use in their deserts! n can be found quite easily in the shops all around the town!

in the evening, we took the carpool thing back to munich, listening to the german commentary of italy getting trashed by holland. hahahha. over here they are super patriotic so the cars hav german flags all over and the people are always wearing the flags and garlands all over the town!! its really FUN!
anyway the guy drove really slowly tho it was an Audi A4, around 130km/h, so it took about 4hrs! so we got back to munich only at 1am!!! even the earlier ones i took which were really small cars like ford or mazdas went up to 160!!

okie more exciting weekends coming up~
*sherms*

stuttgart 1-2june

actually stuttgart is a really BORING place.
im glad i did not go there for exchange!
but my frens are there so i just went to pay them a visit!
but at least the weather was good!!
n we saved on accomodation by staying with them!
n germany has this ‘car-pool’ thing that aaron n i tried. its really cool!
there’s this website where the travelling germans just post offers n u search for your required destination and they give u a lift! its like a proper hitch hiking thing.
helps them to cover their petrol too. which is really ex here. €1.5 a litre.
plus its cheaper than taking the train! cos DB (deutsche bahn) is really expensive!
from here to stuttgart (2hrs away) with mitfahrgelegenheit (carpool) costs about €10-€15.

me and the 2 girls i went to visit! in some nice park.

we sat on this really cute n small train around the big park!

it ran on a steam engine! really!

then we climbed this tower!

here’s all of us at the top!

there were also cute animals in the park!

n pretty flowers too~

then the next day we went to the porsche museum!
here’s me at the showrooM! with the 911 carrera and carrera S!

and here at the gift shop with a small-sized replica of a porsche!

when we were in the gift shop, some lady was gathering people to go for the english tour of the factory so luckily for us, we asked to join the tour and went for it! it was really exciting!
though most parts are supplied by external suppliers, we were able to see the assembly, stitching of the upholstery and the many different variations of porsches manufactured!
unfortunately camera were not allowed in the workshops so no photos!!

anyway that was the end of the stuttgart-visiting weekend! it was fun cooking & hanging out with my frens!

* sherms *

prague 22-25may

ok more touristy stuff coming up.
actually prague happened the weekend after my last post! so it has been nearly a month already! cos i’ve been really lazy….so i’ll just post some photos! weather there was gloomy too only the last day it was a little sunny.

this is the Vltava River that runs thru the whole of prague and there are many many bridges across it. the most famous is Charles Bridge, which is in the background!

here’s a nice panorama of the river!

this is charles’ gate, which is at the start of charles bridge.

and here’s the bridge itself, which is filled with tourists, shops and buskers!

here’s the beautiful Staré město (old town square), where they are several churches and horse rides are offered

the famous astronomical clock is also there! sadly, we dont really know how it works after looking at it for quite a while…

the next day we took some funicular up the mountain, where the prague castle overlooks the city.
we first visited some miror labyrinth, so finally here are shots with all of us!
tho weird ones, like with long bodies or long legs. bleah.

a view of the city!

i thought this was an interesting and cute poster.
its kinda ironic that the museum of communism is above mcdonalds, if u can see the tiny print at the bottom right corner of the poster.

and finally here’s the prague castle, guarded by 2 titans at the top of the gate…

and also by 2 royal guards. one was actually dozing off while standing.

can u imagine how tiring it must be. they cant even turn their heads!

another interesting thing. their car park poles here are faces which have thousands of different variations!!

we had dinner at this place which served some authentic czech food!

the czechs eat alot of rice/bread dumplings with meat and interesting sauces!

next day we went up the mountain again, to visit the st. vitus cathedral, near the prague castle!
we had to climb about 300 spiral steps to reach the top. no joke.

but we had a fantastic view of the city!!

me at the top!

then we went to this tower that was previously used as a prison. and there were tons of torture instruments there. i refused to find out what they were used for. looked terribly cruel tho.

me along the charles bridge again! at last we have blue skies. tried to create that blurry effect around me but did not really succeed. prob cos the people around me were not walking fast enough. hah.

finally dinner! went to this place recommended by our fren who has been there, quite reasonable meals! surprisingly, their pork dish came with wasabi. cooolll!!!!

sunday, just before going back to munich we went to this jerusalem synagogue, very pretty exterior.
prague is split up into several parts, old town, new town, lesser town, jewish quarter.
but this synagogue is not in the jewish quarter, we just chanced upon it! those in the jewish quarter charge ridiculous fees for entry. this was cheap!

and the guys have to wear this thing on their head called yarmulkes, as a form of respect.

ok thats the end! im really lazy to say more…
the following weekend’s travel news coming up!

sherms

its me AGAIN.

hey. this is kinda outdated but i just got the photos! anyway on 7 may i went to catch a bayern munich match at their home stadium! which is just 3 train stops from where i live! anyway i paid €23 for the ticket and it was really fun!!! also it determined whether or not they won the league championship which of cos they did:)

anyway here are some pics!

me n the 2 guys who went. the others were in paris so they missed the match! this is at the train station itself which has many bayern munich souvenir stalls during match days only!!
we asked some stranger to take this pic n his hand shook so badly so its really blur.
n tho we did not have any bayern memorabilia, we tried to wear the team colors!

this is the very pretty ticket that we got to keep.
oh crap now im wondering where i put it.

with the HUGE stadium and the many many fans walking towards it!

some advertisement of a credit card they were advertising with a picture of the bayern team!!

the team mascot and the stadium!

this is the view from where we were sitting. the atmosphere was amazing!
there were fans singing and shouting non-stop. i was trying very hard to understand the songs:(

us with the field during half-time! score was already 1-0!

at the end of the game! score was 2-0, very exciting match.
so FC Bayern won the german league (Bundesliga 2008) and there was small celebratory ceremony where the players sang n danced all over the field. very fun!
but no prize giving cos they still had to play one match to determine the team in the 3rd place.

the stadium at night. its lighted up RED. super nice.

the stadium can be seen from the rooftop of my block, which is 20 storeys high.
my fren from stuttgart came over and was shocked that germany has a 20 storey building!!!
my block is the highest in studentenstadt (literally translates to students city), which is where i live.
n i live on the 12th floor!!! i can see the ALPS from my window!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

here’s a photo of the view from my window. sunset with the moon. it faces a garden n i get the morning sun.
so every morning around 530am the birds wake me up, plus the sun’s rays if i forget to draw my curtains.
unfortunately i didnt take a shot of the alps yet. i will sooN! hopefully it doesnt melt away………

ok anyway over the weekend i went to NEUSCHWANSTEIN SCHLOSS (directly translates to new swan castle), which was built by the eccentric/infamous King Ludwig II. anyway he had this infatuation to build fairy-tale/romantic castles so he got a playwrite author to design it. he kinda spent his whole life on that obsession but it wasnt completd when he died. so its very very different from the typical fortress-looking castles during that time.

actually there’s another one in the same area, but not so magnificent, n its the usual ones with the fort. here it is. after a 2 hour train ride, we reached schloss hohenschwangau, and is the childhood residence of the same crazy king!! we visited this this first cos it was not so high up in the mountains!

after a 40mins hike upwards, we reached the this bridge, where there’s a great view of the castle!! was super cold but after the hike we were all sweating…
heard the interior is not impressive tho, so we did not go in. anyway it was quite a gloomy day:(
so i’ll prob go there again!!

after another 40mins walk, we reached the entrance of the castle! we didnt wanna pay to go in so this is nearly as far as i can go!

k actually this is the furthest we could go without the tickets! just up the stairs…
anyway u can see that i have a new cap! bayern munich cap!!!!! me n my urge to buy souvenirs.. heheh
its for children so its cheaper than the normal ones!! at least i try my best to save money..

this is rather random but later after hiking down we went to look for macs cos they had the cheapest food: €1 cheeseburger/apple pie/drink/sundae. and on the way there we saw cute garden gnomes!! in someone’s garden.

i really like the idea of it. so pretty eh.
ok that’s all for now! anyway i went to watch an opera today! it is in french but there were german subtitles, which was above the stage so kinda straining my neck every few seconds n bcos of that cant really concentrate on the stage/characters! but it was really good…recommended by the german teacher, and only €10 for students! a tragedy written by Goethe, a famous german author. the national theater is really gorgeous! can fight with the one in london.. heh but didnt bring my camera cos i didnt know if it was allowed. so no pics unfortunately.

n there’s a music fest from tmr to sat. 4 days! there will be 100 over bands in 4 locations all over studentenstadt…and from yest they were building all the tentages…hammering away!! n today food stalls were set up. really looking forward to it but i will be here only for 1 day! there’s a fireworks show at 11pm tmr!!

BCOS IM GOING TO PRAGUE ON THURSDAY. HAHAHAHAHHAHA. SO EXCITING.
and i’ll be back on sunday okie…then hopefully i will have inspiration again to update this blog…..such a burden i tell ya.

CIAO:) i hope i hav fun in prague. i actually hav a fren who regretted going there. she said its too touristy.
gosh actually i feel more like a tourist than a student. anyways, bye!

shermz

hej hej

hey sorry for being so MIA…i was mugging for an exam i had on wednesday and it was a total disaster!!! cos it was in german and i spent tons of time translating the notes but i still couldnt realyl understand it. n tho our prof allowed us to answer the german qns in english i did not manage to borrow the english text so no use! aArgh anyways its over so im glad. n the weather now is wonderful!!! average of about 17deg!!! so we had our first bbq on wed night!!! partly to celebrate that that horrible exam was over and just to have a gathering!!

oh and i bought a bicycle last friday!!! so it has been reallly fun cycling around…haha second hand bike for only 35euros!!! and i will sell it back to the shop. anyway its purple and really pretty…was not on purpose that i chose a purple one. it was the only nice-looking n functional one that was suitable! i’ll upload the pic when i get it cos its in my fren’s camera!

and before all this during the labor day period i went to SWEDEN to visit kj!!! here are some of the pics!!!

i reached around 8pm so we couldnt do much but that night itself she brought me to this club!! its really pretty..like a museum..and big too! here’s us!! n she cooked a nice dinner for me too..

next morning…we’re eating french hotdogs that cost 20SEK!!!

and here’s the spring fest that i went for!! they have some boat race where teams make their own boat and compete! unfortunately many of them break apart when they go down some small waterfall…

and here’s all of us along the river watching the race!

and here’s one of mine fav boats…the simpsons one!! and they even had the simpsons theme song playing along…so cool right!!!

and in the afternoon they had this thing called champagne gallop where they party and spray champagne all over each other!!! it was really fun to watch hahah they all looked like they were enjoying it tho after that they stank and were really cold…hahah

oh n besides all that of cos we ate some good food!!! at places kj recommended….not cheap tho but guess its considered normal for the swedes..nothign there is cheap anyway. but of cos the cafes are very nicely furnished!! guess u pay for the atmosphere..

and the next day we went sightseeing!! this is the uppsala palace grounds and the garden behind..

us in the garden, with the pink palce behind!!

and again we go to eat!!! yay.. another nice n pretty cafe..called cafe linnie. that’s where they always hang out i think.

and this is us in front of the cafe!! i dont think its big enough to tel but we are actually wearing the same top cos i bought it for her from germany!!! hehe

and thanks to kj and frens we had a bbq that evening!!!
she invited her classmates so here’s all of us!! it was really fun!!!

the next day we took on stockholm!!

first we went to this place called Gamla Stan (old town).
it has tons of candy shops and gift shops. my favourite!!!

and the symbol of sweden is the moose!!! so there are tons of souvenirs with mooses on them!! really cute i say! of cos i had to buy some stuff back hahah i felt compelled to somehow. heh

lunch!! at this place called muffin bakery!!!
tho we were so bloated by the sandwich we coulnt finish our muffins!

then we went to this place called skansen that is supposed to be ‘little sweden’!!
they have little houses where they show you how they make their glass wares and all and also the swedish houses in the olden days. there were cute animals toO!

anyway we bought this delicious cinnamon bread from the bakery!

here’s us in a reaplica of a swedish house in the 1920s. its really tiny!

but before those proper brick houses they used to live in ones like this!

here’s a view of stockholm city from skansen!!

the cute animals…elks and brown bears

and look at this amazing tree….those colorful things are all pacifiers!!!
donated by the swedish citizens to skansen, where its used by the little animals!!

After a long long day, we went for dinner!! they actually have a food court in sweden!!!
i was so surprised!!! with really good food too…we ate from this indian stall where kj said its good.
but we shared so we weren’t full so we bought a maxbox!!
here’s me with mine!!! its like mac’s happymeal just that its from MAX. which is a swedish fast food place.

anyway we ran to catch this bus back to uppsala!!! we made it on time! only had 1 day in stockholm which i felt was not really enough cos we had to rush! and skansen is so huge we didnt see everything cos we went to late n many of the little huts were already closed…

the next mornign on the way to uppsala bus station to catch the bus to arlanda airport! here’s the pretty river with the small waterfalls…

and the nice park near kj’s place~!

ok thats the end of my sweden trip!

usha y u nv post any photos too??
samz hope u are enjoying your holidays….i didnt work at the restaurant downstairs cos i went to sweden n i think they found someone already..

anyway hope everyone’s doing fine!!! miss u guys tons….

tmr im going to neuschwanstein castle, which is 2 hrs away from Munich! its the inspiration behind many of Disney’s movies!! as well as this logo below…

i hope i wont be lazy enough to uploads photos of it!!! its said to be gorgeous…
okie thats all for now…

heyaloww pEPpz! well shermz i can seeo ur having tons of fun!
haha tats good.,..

and now im guessing ur in Sweden with KJ.. since she was telling abt how she has excitedly planned ur iternary!

haha so u will be prETTy busy im sure..

haha post more pics soon k!

~~WHooSHAA

heya shermzz

hey shermz.. sorry for takin so long to post… am finally done with exams.. exams were so bad cos came down with high fever on the eve of exams.. im just glad its all over and done with… so hows germany coming along… lookin at the pictures it sure looks like u r having fun.. how r the classes coming along?? so r u going to work at the beer place in ur apartment… anywayy im sorry im puttin up such a short post.. im still tryin to recover from fever so i promise ill put up a longer post asap k.. and with pictures too!!!

and anyway the reason the title and password is in our names is cos i was doin this blog at like in the mornin in the midst of studyin… and every title i came up with kept gettin rejected and i seriously couldn thin anymore… i thought it will be like blogspot where u can change the title anytime but apparently not… sorry abt it…

Sameema