Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Retail Therapy, a snoring roomate, getting lost in translation and other musings

1. After feeling like shit yesterday, i woke up today and decided to do something to make myself better.... RETAIL THERAPY. Met up with valerie to get the chinese new year goodies that my family gave me and after that i went to Part Dieu to do some MAJOR grocery shopping.

I bought more postcards to send back home, envelopes, toothpaste, 2L Coke, Chardonnay, 2 bottles of pringles (you can never have have enough pringles), Penne, sauce to cook the penne, cereal, 12pack of yoghurt, 2L Milk, 2 capsicum, 10eggs... i literally went crazy at Carrefour.... all that plus a bottle of pineapple tarts and peanut pastry sitting on my shelf. SO.FUCKING.HAPPY....

i'm going to eat myself silly till i become fat and ugly. WOOTS!!!

2. my roomate's snoring has reached new levels. he actually sounds like he is choking on his own tongue when he snores, like some gagging noises... damn power. i still woke up despite after drinking one whole bottle of Chablis (because i was feeling lousy, i am not alcoholic). The earplugs siwei gave me keep dropping out so that wasnt much help either. i havent had a single nite of sleep without waking up since i came

so i will conduct a poll: leave a tag and tell me if i should tell my roomate his problem (if he doesnt already know) or shud i just keep things status quo....

3. amidst the massive task of translating my notes, i've realised that sometimes... some stuff gets lost in translation.... like when i babelfish-ed "methode forfaitaire", it became "contractual method".... like what the fuck does that mean???

and something like "On considère 2 travées adjacentes de l’appui i, de portées fictives becomes "we consider 2 spans adjacent to support i, of fictatious ranges"..... somehow it turns out funny. and what looks like a picture of a type of beam (which was named "queue d'aronde") became a friggin "dovetail"..... it certainly didnt look like one. but... erm, THIS IS FRANCE FOR YOU MON AMI!!!

WHAM BAM ALAKAZAM!!!! ------out
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C'est comme merde

Sigh.... i know i have been very very whiny but i feel very very shitty. maybe because i'm back from a wonderful holiday, and suddenly brought back to reality that i suck at studying.... or maybe i am finally missing my family....

it's just that my french is not improving as much as i would like... and no one wants to pair up with a friggin chink to do project. I dun have Robson here to whine with me about not understanding anything.... i just feel so helpless... and feel like giving up.

i've said this to myself many times.... "SEP will either be the best decision or the worst i'll make in my life"..... for the past one month and one week, it was looking very optimistic, but now.... it seems to be going the other way. I wanted to test myself and throw myself into the unknown... obviously i am not as strong as i liked to be.

My parents say when i am here, i'm all alone and even if i need their help, it's "call sky, sky dun answer, call earth, earth not there". I sooo believe it now.

Maybe things will get better, but right now, i just feel comme merde.
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Sunday, February 25, 2007

(MEGA) Update!!! (part quatorze)

disclaimer: a lot of photos to load so it might take some time... SORRY!

WOOTS!!! All i can say is i TOTALLY enjoyed myself in Germany. It was indeed what i have imagined and so much more! Here's a recap on what i did there

Cologne:

there are 4 things you need to know about Cologne

1. The Dom


Basically it's one gigantic, in-your-face, huge ass cathedral right smack outside the train station so there's no way in hell you can ever miss it. Too bad it was closed the few days i was there, probably the monks fear drunkards going into the cathedral and make a mess out of the place. Bummer. Otherwise i would have been able to get a bird's eye view of the city

2. The food

There were so many food stands selling all sorts of food.... i basically ate my way thru Cologne. Bockwursts, bratwursts, kasewursts, currywursts, steaks, fries, wedges, ice cream.... i am now on a one way street to cholestrol hell.

3. The people.

Somehow or rather, the number of Singaporeans who decided to come to Cologne during the Karneval just....

keeps....

getting......

BIGGER!!!! It was practically a freaking Singaporeans Chinese New Year Mass Orgy. In the end we had to split up and travel cos the group was just too big to do anything constructive.

4. The Event

the thing you got to know about Karneval is that you HAVE to dress up. Anything goes really...

There were nurses...

a happy tiger family....

a chicken and a showering man...
erm, even sailormoon...

beerman....

and the occasional toiletbowl... comes inclusive with flushing water sound. No shit

i was so unprepared for the dressing up i just bought myself a jester hat and a garland... all in French colours! (loyal right)... and if you mix all these up... You get...

wah piang damn a lot of people.

Aachen:

Admist the pre-Karneval celebrations, Siwei, new found friends Ivan and YuCheng and i went to the UNESCO protected town of Aachen... i dunno why its a UNESCO site cos actually there wasnt much to see...
the usual suspects in the form of churches


and the Rathaus.... i hope i got the spelling correct. i actually believed my friends when they told me its a place where a lot of rats congregate at the main sewers of the city.... and i was initially quite excited to see rats (dun ask why) until i realised rathaus is actually the mayor's office (i think) in german. ok....rats... politicians.... i see the connection now.

more churches...

OK back to Cologne:

For the Karneval day proper, we decided to go to Siwei's friend's sister's colleague house (I truly believe in the game of six degrees by now) since it was right beside the street where the floats will be passing by.
The bavarian and the French jester

the owner of the house... i forgot his name. Anyway for the Karneval here, not only will there be music, floats and dressing up, there will be free choclolates and sweets!! All thrown by the people in the passing floats!! And who said free food dun fall down from the sky?!!! Whoever said that obviously havent come to Cologne!

I shall let the video and pictures do the talking:



Jack Sparrow's battalion


Steppers... please take note

Apparently Heidi Klum and Seal were on a float but according to Csilla, Csaba's sister, who is Siwei's friend, we missed it when we were heading up the flat.... TA MA DE. I missed my chance to say "Heidi, that means you're out. Auf Wiedersehen"
At the colleagues place, there was a chalkboard... feeling patriotic out of a sudden, we came up with this... hahah nice right
the ugly aftermath... i pity the cleaners. Everywhere is a nasty mixture of horse poo, dog poo, confetti, stepped on sausages and food. GROSS.

Karlsruhe:

back at Siwei's city, Karlsruhe, there was a Karneval of a smaller scale... and Siwei couldnt resist the free chocolates (or so we think they will give) that he dragged me along the very next day.... talk about overkill

We were quite excited to get more free Ritter Sports and Toblerone to add to our bagful of collection from Cologne and yes there was free food.... but there were all candies.... very not-nice candies. those u find when u visit the doctor.... and to make things worse.... there were small and hard so when they flew down they were like freaking tiny bullets hitting you everywhere. i got so fed up i walked away...

a rock band float

confetti galore!!

Titisee, Feldberg, Freiburg:

basically the remaining days were so much calmer. we made day trips to several places... and our first stop was Titisee. Ironic name since its not a sea but a lake... but see is german for lake you see (pun not intended)

the lake was frozen in half... and its quite cool! Look! Holy Be-jesus the ducks are walking on the lake!!
At a nearby resaurant i treated Siwei to a meal, sort of a thank you meal for hosting me. And it freaking cost nearly 50euros. Its not everyday you eat a S$100 lunch eh... wah. heart pain. haha but it's nice nonetheless.... it better be.

Took a bus to Feldberg next. I was sooooo not prepared for this trip and i didnt expect to go to a freaking ski resort so i didnt bring any better footwear besides my sneakers. But it turned out to be the highlight of the day.....



because we tried Tobogganing!!! wahahaha all for 5euros. damn fun!

We saw a group of toddlers building a snow bear...

so we decided to build a snowman of our own.... not as easy as u think it is.... we wanted to build one as high as us at first... but ended up with one like this:

MY FIRST SNOWMAN!! BASKING IN THE SUNLIGHT!

yah, i noe, very puny.... but like i said... its not easy and we had a bus to catch back to Titisee.

For the rest of the journey to Freiburg, my whole feet was wet from the snow... i was half expecting a wrinkled feet when i get back, but strangely that didnt happen.


Didnt really do much at Freiburg since it was already evening... did some groceries and had more food. seriously, i am very very fat now.

Ok, back at Karlsruhe:

didnt really got the chance to explore the city till Thursday and i was so happy to see so much greenery and flowers!! I can safely say that winter is gone and SPRING HAS ARRIVED!!

Flower Power! WOOTS!!



I love this picture!! notice the sun rays.... it was so warm i had heat rash. dunno what will happen when i get back to spore...

Konstanz and Meersburg:

We had no expectations of the Konstanz and Meersburg since none of us have been here before so we were pleasantly surprised by the city. it was really pretty, despite not being a UNESCO heritage site, it has more to offer than freaking Aachen.
Cute car!!
We went to Mainau island which was supposed to be a really beautiful island... it was. but most of the flowers werent in full bloom yet, else it would have been much better!
Very gross.... we saw 2 ponies mating.... i shrieked and freaked. call me a prude but i was not used to seeing my animals copulate in front of me... the female pony was as good as being raped. Damn.... too bad i didnt take a video.

Took a ferry to Meersburg and it was nearly sunset by then..... i initially didnt want to go cos i was lazy... but Mr Li emotional blackmailed me into going... and i didnt regret it.

It was a really picturesque town... with a fort and stuff.... quaint little town.... nothing was opened thou. i couldn't decide whether was it because it's evening or because its winter... but reminded me of the set of 28 Days Later.

i think Rongwei is right.... my face is getting rounder.... i wanna run, but its too damn cold and i dun have proper running shoes.... and i have too many darn excuses

Amazed at such grandeur and scenic view, i couldnt resist taking a leak.... sorry eh. no toilets were opened.

PHEW....... freaking long post.

Alrighty now.....that's my 9 days in Germany, i am now 320euros poorer.... and i cant get enough of the place. Its really fantastic. i I will definitely be back for more!!!
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