Eurotrip Winter 2008

Unfortunately no pictures until probably Easter break, but my Michaelmas winter trip route:

Cambridge, UK ->
London, UK ->
Frankfurt, Germany ->
Munich, Germany ->
Innsbruck, Austria ->
Milan, Italy ->
Modena, Italy ->
Pisa, Italy ->
Florence, Italy ->
Rome, Italy ->
Vatican City, Vatican City ->
Venice, Italy ->
Bavaria, Germany ->
Dasing, Germany ->
Giessen, Germany
Frankfurt, Germany ->
Marrakech, Morocco ->
Todra Gorge, High Atlas Mountains, Morocco ->
Tinerhir, Morocco ->
Erfoud, Morocco ->
Merzouga, Morocco ->
Sahara Desert, Morocco, Algerian border ->
Risani, Morocco ->
Marrakech, Morocco ->
Cologne, Germany ->
Sofia, Bulgaria ->
Bansko, Bulgaria ->
Sofia, Bulgaria ->
London, UK ->
Barcelona, Spain ->
Cambridge, UK

*^____^*

A lovely little dinner in Innsbruck

It was dim, foggy, cold and snow flurry-ing ouside, but we decided to brave it in search of dinner. The streets were completely deserted, no restaurant was in sight. We walked down the street, peering at the side streets for places that looked open and offered food, but no luck. The only stores we passed were antique shops. Finally one side street showed a pizza restaurant-cafe that was open.

As we hurried towards it across the street, we noticed a place standing next to us with a dim light on and doors opening to heavy dark velvet curtains, a menu posted outside on the wall. Curious to this place, we decided to visit it first before the pizza place.

The curtains led to another door that was closed, and we opened it to find ourselves in the middle of a quiet bar with a large group of people drinking at a table. Er it didn't look quite like a restaurant, so we paused in confusion for a second and decided to leave, when one of the guys in the table group yelled, Hello hello! Come eat, great food! I guess we looked like we didn't know German. Honestly I thought he was kind of drunk, and/or making fun of us, but he insisted this was a restaurant too so we stepped in and sat at a table.

The bar was very nicely and tastefully decorated with different wood panelling, ornaments, paintings, flowers, and lights. The menu was incomprehensible, I tried asking the bartender/owner but he wasn't responsive to me, then the guy offered to translate for me. He invited me to sit down at his table and introduced the other people around him; his name was Michael. I began to think that maybe he was a nice guy after all, and it was just his Austrian accent and voice that made him sound mocking when he spoke English. So he described the standard Austrian dishes on the menu, and I ended up ordering: one beer, two waters, onion soup, breaded chicken breast with french fries, and Austrian dumpling-type trio set.

The food was all cooked by the barternder/owner's wife in the kitchen. The couple was old in age, but still active. Michael assured me her cooking was superb; it seemed like most of the people who came to this place were regulars and their friends. The food took a while to come because she was also cooking the group table's, so while we waited, we ate the peanuts, walnuts, tangerines, and chocolate that were in a big bowl on our table. Heh we spent the whole time wondering if those cost money, but we ate them anyway.

The food came one by one, it was delicious! Oh my god the onion soup is to die for. In a hot stone pot, thick cheese crust on top, hot soup below with onions and soft bread inside, mhmmmmm. The chicken breasts were lightly breaded and very juicy and marinated inside. The dumplings were heavy on the stomach, but very Austrian/Germany type I know, and very good too -- I just can't eat more than 1.5 of them. We were so stuffed, and then Michael told me he had ordered dessert for us because we had to try it. We waited for quite a while, and we started wondering if I had heard Michael correctly, but dessert indeed came. Three plates of hot crepe with ice creams wrapped inside and drizzled in hot chocolate. Amazingness. I told him it was too much, we were already so full! He laughed and replied that there's a separate stomach for dessert. I was surprised he knew this English idiom, and regardless, he was absolutely right, the three of finished each of our own dessert completely mhmmmmmmm.

We wondered what the final bill would be, if there were extra charges, etc. that foreigners like to place on unsuspecting tourists... but it came out to only 25 Euros for the three of us! Desserts on Michael. Amazingness. We thanked Michael and the owners profusely for their hospitality. What a wonderful meal. We trekked back to our hotel in a bigger snowstorm, but bellies satisfied and happy.

Yum yum :)

Watching TV

[I wish I had an Iphone so I could blog while traveling, but I can only scribble labouriously on paper my random thoughts/stories to transcribe later to blog.]

I like watching TV in different countries even when I have no idea what they're saying. I like watching what their local programs are like, the commercials, what the local news are -- it's an interesting piece of insight into the country's culture. Some sort of recurring theme or specialty always exists in a country's television. Austria likes to depict its lovely alpine landscapes and music; Italy shows either hot girls or leery old men. The US has lots of car commercials while Europe has lots of tourism ads from other countries. The television also proves how similar and globalized humans are. I watched American human tetris, British Weakest Link, British Family Feud (but more intelligent), several Italian versions of Deal or No Deal (with much hotter Italian girls), Italian Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. And not to mention the countless spin-offs of American Idol.

Cambridge Formals

so far:

* Gonville and Caius *
- standing at the back of the queue (I said queue! line!) for Superhall tickets while everyone else cut the queue for 45 minutes and being very very afraid that they were going to run out of tickets by the time we got to the front - getting the second to last ticket -
- bringing lots of people - random or not - to normal formal halls to get rid of my tickets - can now eat wherever I want for rest of term :)

* Peterhouse *
- MITers with a bottle of wine each - some guy's birthday party, resulting in a drunken speech on top of the table and mooning us (twice) with English flag boxers - more drunkeness at the bar afterwards

* St. John's *
- quite quiet because of the formal hall boycott - gorgeous hall and food oh my the best - extremely strict porter - one of us almost getting kicked out for trying to penny - taking lots of pictures of hall after the fellows leave the high table - hanging out afterwards and talking half in Chinese the rest of the night about Chinese movies, Chinese food, Chinese cities, Singapore, whatever else random topics

* Churchill *
- launch of Spring Ball theme - seeing white girls with white face powder and their definition of a makeshift kimono - thinking oh god what if the Spring Ball theme is like, Japan or something? - finding out the Spring Ball theme is Neon Sunrise Tokyo, combination of old Japanese culture and the new neon light modern raves of Tokyo - seeing half the dressed up people in Chinese rather than Japanese clothes - a guy in a Hello Kitty costume head that was made out of a de-stuffed pillow - Japanese food for superhall - teaching one to eat with choptsticks! - one talking up an East Asian studies major - going from Churchill room to St John's - trying to learn how to ride a bicycle along the way - making a fool of myself - ending up giving each other and thinking about brainteasers most of the night - meeting the awesomely funny drunk next door neighbor - taking turns going to another "special" room to see if one has the correct answer - me being very happy I solved it first

* Trinity *
- not a day for good food - college bar pool and Foosball - watching replays of Man U v Stokes 5-0 at the bar - as much as I can drink in 10 minutes? okay not really - playing guitar and You Don't Know Jack on the computer - not going to the toga party - riding on the back of a bicycle while driver not completely sober - ending up listening and singing to Chinese songs until 5am

* Girton *
- so freaking far away - thank goodness for friend's car transportation - entering through the back entrance and walking all the way through the college to the front - nice JCRs, swimming pool, squash court, Tesco down the road... Girton is self-sufficient - life after Girton? life outside of Girton? - meeting new people - realizing the whole long hall table is reserved for CUMSA group - no pennying allowed, but secret spooning - pennying dessert - college bar drinking but then half the guys getting banned for drunken rowdiness - very amusing drunks - going on a big walking tour of Girton while making sure one person doesn't throw up - lots and lots of cam whoring the whole night - what a Girton adventure

* Christ *
- tomorrow - supposedly lots of pennying to get ready for :P

this is the way to live [London]

driving into London Chinatown just for dinner
buying ramen yummy ramen for friends
knockoff pocky definitely not as good as real pocky!
meandering around Chinatown
navigating the Chinatown alleyways for Hong Kong Cafe by a friend on the phone
salivating over crispy golden ducks hanging in store front windows
London night time sightseeing by car
taking city pictures through rainy windshields
leaning out the window of the moving car into the rain in order to get better shots

walking halfway across London and seeing it all again in the daytime
Trafalgar Square
Nelson's Column

Buckingham Palace
Westminister Abbey
Thames River walk
not getting to the Tower of London
random sculptures along the sidewalk
obligatory London telephone booth pictures
walking walking talking learning just looking window-shopping where are we going
riding the red double-decker city bus around Hyde Park
Harrod's posh-ness
Harrod's restroom posh-ness
Harvey Nichols being the same as ten years ago
Fifth floor sushi on a conveyor belt
Tube-ing it for the first time
Pirandello, Gieguld Theater lights
cider pre- and mid- drinks
London nightscapes again


waking up oh so early
breakfast in the car
stories and history lessons in the car
Tower of London terror and dark dungeon galore
in awe of the Crown Jewels
hehe Buckingham red guard bears
the White Tower armouries
Henry VIII's enormity
guns guns guns germs and steel
prisoner's chambers and their wall graffiti
rushing madly to Stonehenge
running around Stonehenge like crazy and taking 1000 pictures in 15 minutes
trading cameras and taking more pictures
taking more pictures just because we can
did I mention pictures?
did I mention sheep?
pat pat baa baa white sheep
all the angles of Stonehenge

making a U turn in the middle of the highway to detour to Woodhenge
running around, jumping around
laughing
having Woodhenge all to ourselves
action pictures
fun pictures
random pictures
what a playground
dinner randomly through GPS
the best Peking roast duck place ever

train station parking
taking the train into London
King's Cross, wondering where Platform 9 3/4 is
finally, English afternoon tea
Sloane Street Square
the hotel where Oscar Wilder frequented and was infamously arrested at, accused of sodomy
tea sandwiches
champagne and tea
pastries
oh the art of eating scones
fat piggy
London Bridge (is falling down, falling down...)
dinner conversation
late night train home
first sight of UK snow!
pretty fluffy white snow around London outskirts
white scary-looking balls of hail raining hard and fast

Cambridge by night and by day, beyond words

Second sighting of Stephen Hawking and Caius Matriculation dinner

I brought a friend to a Tuesday Caius formal hall because Stephen Hawking often comes then. No luck, I told him to try again another week. Next day, I go to formal hall. For once I'm a little early so I'm at the head of the middle table, right by the high table for Master and Fellows, perpendicular to us. Lo and behold, right before Latin Grace is read, Stephen Hawking comes out in his wheelchair with his pretty blonde nurse. He waits for Grace to be said, facing the whole hall and thereby giving us -- especially us at head of the middle table -- an interminable three minutes to stare at him and scrutinize him, his disability, his wheelchair, his laptop, his caretaker...

After dinner, we return to our dorms, but then decide to visit the college bar for a few drinks before going out to a club maybe. When we enter the courtyard we hear people talking about Stephen Hawking in the college bar. I walk in, wondering if he's going to be typing physics to his doctorate students or something... and find one old professor and Hawking sitting in his wheelchair with his blonde nurse... and five other blonde chicks with drinks in a circle. You should have seen the skeptical look on my face. So my friends and I sit in our own circle, wondering what the hell the conversation could be over there. We kind of wanted to go over and say hi to him, but then we thought, er since he can't reply, what are we supposed to do? awkward turtle? dunno o.O so we didn't do anything :P I call my friend from the night before with the news, and he drops what he's doing and runs from over 45 minutes away in hopes that Hawking will still be there. Hawking still is, so him and I have a conversation near the bar, with my back to Hawking so that my friend can talk to me and see Stephen Hawking in person for the first time before his nurse waves Good Night to everyone for him and wheels him away. haha, ridiculous, right? :P

Matriculation dinner is supposed to be one of the nicest dinners we will have in the university - not hard compared to regular hall food. We had drinks with the senior members before dinner (gorgeous antique rooms btw) and talked to the Caius Master briefly - his Chinese is quite good! For dinner we sat in our majors with our Director of Studies, nice evening all together :)

Pictures of us and dinner say it all:

Things they told me at MIT about Cambridge that are not true

First and foremost, the whole hype was all "oh Cambridge is awesome there's no required work that's due, or any midterms exams. You can focus on learning the material at your own pace!"

Students later admit, the weekly supervision papers should be attempted for your own learning benefit, "but just doing a few questions or showing some work is enough."

I've attended a few supervisions and now I see that it's all BS. I have a pset for a class every two weeks (four classes => two psets a week) that are super long and difficult - and it's not okay if you don't do them. The supervisor says "Do questions blah blah blah." I have to turn in my work a day ahead of time, and the supervisor goes over our graded work for one hour, just me and another person. I *could* not do any work, since there are no numerical grades per se, but then my supervisor would be like, WTF is wrong with you, if I answer no to "Did you attempt question X?" repeatedly. Plus two out of my four supervisors are my Directors of Studies, basically academic advisors. Yea, I am not willing to put up with the weekly- and subsequently year-long awkwardness with them.

Students also told me Brits go to bed really early here; as an exchange student, bed time was around 11pm. Ummmm I also don't know whereth they were hanging out, because all my Cambridge friends here go to sleep around 1-4am, definitely comprable to my MIT sleep schedule. Well I guess I'm lucky I don't have 8am lectures, mine are 10-12pm or 11-1pm everyday.

Caius food is not as bad as everyone warned. I would say the average Caius food is the same as another college's, maybe Trinity and St. John's are slightly better. Or maybe it's because I can't tell what is good English food or not, it's all the same meh to me..

Will add more as I remember/notice/decide to write.

It's scary how normal living here has become. I feel the onset of the same quiet, downwards static-ness that I was afraid of and ran away from at MIT.

Playing Chardes

in high school, Georgia, USA
ex:=
The Man with the Golden Gun
Britney Spears
Titanic
Star Wars
Mickey Mouse

at University of Cambridge, England
ex:=
Ecclesiastes
A Tale of Two Cities
Much Ado About Nothing
Wuthering Heights
To Kill a Mockingbird
Tess of the D'urbervilles

Becoming a Cambridge student

Gonville & Caius College freshman Matriculation photo, all of one hundred eighty-something odd of us standing around the green court at 9:30am, half-hungover and chilly yet chatty and proudly wearing our blue college gowns.
multiples roll calls and assembly into alphabetical lines for the photo shoot
being able to walk on the grass for a few seconds!
To think, I will be forever captured in this matriculation photo as a true Caius freshman
Sitting in the dining hall at the front of the table, being welcomed by the Caius Master and Fellows formally into Gonville & Caius College and hearing their hearty congratulations, taking the ink pen and officially signing my name onto both the college and university matriculation forms... I look up at the enormous hall ceilings colored by stained glass lights with a sense of immense awe

Our first formal hall dinner, for freshman only, the Caius-definition of a three-course meal with our college gowns
walking in and realizing Stephen Hawking is attending our formal hall, a way of welcome into his college.
someone whispers Stephen Hawking and the name quickly passes down the long hall table from person to person and every head turns to look at the high table in wide-eyed wonderment
me craning my neck to try to figure out what his laptop is running on his wheelchair, some green text that was constantly changing against a black background, but I was too far away to make out anything
all wondering if he was going to say a few electronically created words but he never did

going punting again, this time a seasoned veteren, and with great weather
looking through the various university and college society fairs
meeting and finding freshmen to hang out with, finally feeling more integrated with my college and dorm
joining the Caius Army pub crawl, night before lectures begin :)

lectures are all about managing to find a not-crappy place to sit and scribbling down what the professor is saying and writing at the same time as fast and much as possible
then spending the rest of the afternoon going over each word and sentence to decipher it all
finally understanding that people actually use the library to do work, study, and read textbooks, wow

realizing that I am now a Cambridge student, and time will pass by before I know it

This is England.

I feel like I'm walking around in a quaint 18th century movie, ridiculously out of place.
I love the adorably nice old porters dressed in black suits and black trench coats who know everything under the sun and moon.
Punting along the River Cam and not falling into the water
Sundry of shops and trinkets along windy cobblestone roads
Gorgeous gorgeous green grass that only college Fellows may walk on
You can see stars. stars stars stars bright against the darkness, framed by the top of trees in my field of vision when I walk home alone the road with my face looking up.
Dancing to cheese reminds me of Singapore's Zouk Mambo Jambo.
Horrible, antiquated internet and network connectivity
Such an adventure to find edible cheap food everyday.
British girls and their old school fashion.
I like girls who appreciate good beer.
Unconsciously mimicking a British accent when talking too long to Brits
Not unpacking my room yet.
Freezingly drizzly cold cold yet bright and clear English sky
breathtaking architecture that we call home







>> Rest of Facebook album

Livin' it up in Malaysia

August 1-3 Singapore to Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur, Batu Caves, Malacca, Muar

Since Malaysia was so close right across the border, figured we should take a weekend to drive up and look around the country. We had taken a train and local buses through Malaysia to get to Tioman Is. earlier in the month so we already sight-saw the Malaysian countrysides, but we didn't know what city life in Malaysia was like. The place to go: the capital city of course, Kuala Lumpur! (the name always reminds me of a lumpy koala bear)

The Petronas Towers in KL are the tallest twin buildings in the world, and used to be the tallest building before Taipei 101. Tickets to go up to the observatory tower sell out for the day at like 8am, so we paid a tour agency to stand in line for us >.< We drove to Batu Caves the next day, amazing gigantic limestone formations and the largest gold statue in the world (something like that). The climb from the bottom to top of caves was ~272 steps, gah hot hot sun! Lots and lots of monkeys running around - ick I've heard bad stories of wild monkeys assaulting humans and stealing food o.O packs of chattering monkeys are scary scary! >.<



Then we drove to Malacca, which is a quaint historic town famous for its old British settlements and churches. It has a great long street full of small shops and street vendors, at night it transforms into a even more lively nightmarket. We just spent hours walking along, stuffing ourselves full of everything and anything that catches our eye, and browsing cute little trinkets and such. I don't remember, I bought lots of random cute stuff that I don't know what I'm going to use for when if ever. Plus along the way home back to Singapore we stopped by a rambutan planatation, oh my.




A few more pictures >> Facebook album

:)