This will be rambling, and probably incoherent. I've just submitted my final essay of the year and I've been up for ages, just came back from badminton where I failed big time, and my back feels ravaged! Life is no go? But in the wee hours of the morning, while I was barely started on my essay, some thoughts occurred to me.
These thoughts I will attempt to pin down and articulate. A caveat, this might be honest. Another disclaimer here, however, is that not all of these thoughts will belong to me. By this I mean that sometimes you have thoughts, or certain things spring up in your mind unbidden, but it does not necessarily mean that they are yours. Not if you do not own them. Possibly this means you have to actively disown them. Reject them. We cannot have control over what our brain chooses to throw up, but we do over what we each privately decide to claim. I am not sure I am able to better explain this, not today I guess. Perhaps an example. Perhaps a pretty girl walks by, or you come across certain pictures or scenes in books or movies, and sometimes certain vile thoughts appear. That's not you, that's your body, hormones, your sex drive, whatever. You are what you choose to be (I might not actually believe in that 100% but in this case the phrase works) so you're not determined by what you think, but what you choose to think. What you choose to believe, maybe that's a better term.
So in the morning, with an essay deadline looming uncomfortably close, and a remarkable lack of desire to complete it, I started wondering about the futility of it all. These are not uncommon thoughts, I've had them before and I'm sure most people do, at some point of time in their lives. Sometimes it's after heartbreak, after devastating failure, but rarely is it because of an impending essay I reckon. And yet I wasn't contemplating just the futility of education, but everything else beyond that, everything else it promises too. The degree, the job, the salary. The wife, the family, the end. All of our futures lie still ahead of us, and yet what is it we are supposed to want, what is it we are supposed to derive out of it? Why the stable career, why the metal rice bowl, why the 5 figure salary? Why the stable marriage, why the happy family, why the inspiring legacy left behind? Is it happiness? Days upon days, years upon years of mindless, numbing 8-5s in exchange for what? Happiness over the weekends? During the annual getaways to Europe? How is that in any way worth our whiles? What for stability if we have nothing worth building? What for a peaceful, "meaningful" existence (in the way the world asks of us) paying our taxes and contributing to the economy, if we reach the finish line spent, finding out we have just spent our entire lives working for the sake of working, earning money for the sake of money, never questioning that surely there must be something else out there? We all emerge, some as champions, from the race, but we surely are as much a rat at the end as we were at the beginning. In the realization that we have just spent our entire, beguiling future (or so they tell us), working for our future. There's nothing at the end.
Look at us preen, an endless parade where we offer ourselves to the world, where the world seems to offer itself to us. An endless procession of loves and loss and friends and goodbyes, anger and disappointment and resentment and regret. A constant charade where you show at all times your best face to the world, no matter how it spits in it, where the only time you can afford to let your guard down is in the shelter of your own home, or your own bed, your own pillow, where you sleep the damp sleep of the damned. Or you drink yourself into oblivion night after night, knowing only at night the futility of it all, too wasted the following days to act upon what you know to be true. Where we hide behind labels or we profess not to care, call me a
hopeless romantic if you must, I can't stand the mainstream, I'm an old
soul like that, because that explains all our lives, and if it explains
us then it also absolves us, cause that's just the way I am, and I can't
be held responsible for my actions cause I'm hard-wired just like that. Where we are too afraid to expose any, all of our scars to the world which has inflicted them upon us. Where we are cut up and broken inside but no one ever will know, and if I pretend nothing is wrong with me then you are obliged to pretend that too. Where any real emotions and gestures can only survive behind a facade of knowing irony, this post-modern romance. Where we hide behind cliches and self-deprecating smiles, so that we have something to fall back on in case our genuine feelings get rebuffed. Cause if you knew it, then you never really meant it did you?
Where the children in us are buried beneath our workloads, cause of course they lied when they said 8-5, Monday to Fridays. Where our capacity to rejoice in the beauty of life is so diminished by the stark images we see on the news, where our laughter resounds only in the halls of cinemas, followed only by silent dour walks back home. Where we seek out beauty only to capture it, only to reassure ourselves cause each like we receive is an affirmation of our existence. I am seen, and therefore I am.
This charade, this parade, this competition, this endless grind, the petty quarrels, our petty existences. How could it possibly be worth it? Recycling through our lungs all this secondhand air, recycling the ideas of thinkers long gone, what can we do that is of any worth at all? Does it not sometimes seem as if our continued existence only serves to further degrade and corrupt all that there is around us? With words we tear down what (who) should be built up, we are petty and destructive in all our little ways thinking that of course this doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things I am a good person after all, but little things add up and we are not alone we have enlisted our friends and their friends and we are the angry mob. We are the agents of entropy infecting everything around us with the chaos in our lives as we crash and we slash and we hurt and we blurt, all those words that we never should that we swore we never would. Is this not human nature? we ask.
Why do we continue crawling inch by inch, day by day? We do what is expected of us we work or we study we diligently do our readings submit our essays meet new people stay pleasant trade niceties but do we know why?
This week we celebrate Easter, which is the most important event in the Christian calendar. This is in the most fundamental sense of great relevance to the stream of consciousness as I have attempted to put in words above. At the heart of the message of Easter lies redemption. Redemption from our sins, from our human nature. And victory over death.
This means that I am able to start off from a position of victory, and I believe it's always important to know where you are if you are to have even a clue of where you will be going. Do I have all my answers yet? No, I don't. But I know that it is out there. It is of course different for everyone, which sounds like a truism but probably holds true nonetheless.
Answer is probably the wrong word for me to be using here, because life isn't neat like that. Or is it? I guess for me now it actually is. The answer itself is, achieving it... My Bible tells me, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. And so I have no need to worry. I don't have to, but I do nonetheless. I'm still working it out spiritually.
So I live for God, which is a pretty neat summation, but this fact carries with it its many appendices if you will. This comprises many, if not all, of the answers to those questions. The better word would probably be reason here. Reasons to live, reasons for our continued existence.
There are the big, obvious ones, like love. We live because we love, and we live that we might love. How many accounts have we read and witnessed of the transformative power of love? Colours are brighter. Days past and seasons fade away. Some people even change.
Hope. Everybody hopes. How else can anyone deal with life, pull through times of sorrow and grief, or even times of indifference, times where it seems your life is never going anywhere? Let's be honest, who would do anything without some sort of potential payoff? This is not limited to financial gains (oh man I kind of feel like I'm typing an actual essay here,) just the potential of something, anything better.
And then there are the small things. In fact I would say these are, if not more important, at least more in our control than the big ones. Sunsets. Coastlines. Views from a mountaintop. Snow. Rain. The soft breeze. A good book, movie, song. A certain turn of phrase. A picture. Good food, even. The things that flavour life, that make every day so inimitable and tomorrows irresistible. Beauty. The small things in life. A message from a friend. Gifts. A simple dinner with family, friends. A play. Meaningful conversations. Knowing that someone cares for and about you. Things you can't expect of each day, but which invariably brighten those days in which they are found. Or observed, if we would only see. Open our eyes open our minds open our hearts. Life is out there but it is also here, it is coming but it is also now. Life is in the here and now.
I would go on but I have to sleep to catch a train tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm going to start on some hardcore living. Distilled life, if you will. I will travel.
Happy easter folks!
Saturday 30 March 2013
Monday 25 March 2013
The Beauty Surrounds.
Well, hello. It's been ages since I've last posted, which is kinda counter-intuitive given the number of fun exciting incredible stuff I've been up to these past few weeks. Past few months, in fact. I decided that I'm finally going to unload the BoB (Best of da Best) Storiez of my Christmas trip too. Lest I forget. Pictures are one things, stories are another.
Flew into Eindhoven and spent a couple hours there, finally decided it was time to leave for Amsterdam, so off I went. 3 hours (or so) later, I woke up and realized I'd reach the final stop on the route, Alkmaar. Yep, had overshot Amsterdam by roughly an hour. In my first act of criminality of the trip (hinting at loads more to come, you have no idea,) I pretended to sleep on the train again until it bounced its way back Amsterdam. Successful criminal endeavors: 1!
Amsterdam was beyond amazing, no one had told me it was supposed to be pretty, but it was. Picture perfect canals, fantastically lopsided buildings etc, I was proper loving it. It's gotta rank among my favourite few cities in the world! (pretending to sound like a seasoned traveler.) No weed, because no. Yeah, I'm not that keen on tripping out, I guess. limahkow was probably pretty damned pissed at me after the 48127th time I got us both lost cause I eschew maps, not to mention my compass was pointing in the wrong direction, something I only found out in Belgium somewhere..... Sorry buddy, and thanks for accompanying me to Amsterdam! Most romantic boat cruise of life, sandwiches, apple juice, ym falling asleep... Perfection.
Went to Rotterdam after, cause I wanted to go to Kinderdijk as suggested by ym's cousin. Was supposed to stay the night in Rotterdam but foolishly booked my hostel in Bruges for the night I was supposed to stay in Rotterdam, so I had to rush things something mighty. Finally reached Kinderdijk in the afternoon at about 3, which was a little windmill farm really, with something like 20 windmills? Absolutely picturesque. Was a tiny place, but I decided to wait out the sunset in the hopes of taking a glorious picture of windmills in the dying light of the sun. Was not to be, however. 3 hours later, sun was set and I was sad. Finally arrived back at Rotterdam, foolishly decided to walk from the bus stop to Rotterdam Central where I was supposed to catch my train into Belgium. Foolish cause I got almost completely lost, I was mapless and WiFi-less so I followed my gut feel really. Not the brightest thing to do when your train is in just 1.5 hours in an unfamiliar city.
But I did, cause sometimes my brain trips over its own cleverness and I end up doing totally retarded things. Did manage to find my way to the train station ultimately, with just minutes to spare, and thanks to some fantastic directions from a pretty nice pretty lady. Little was I to know, my train would be delayed by some 2 hours. Not very pleasant, unfortunately. I did use the time to fill in this compensation form, which promised me a full refund since the delay was 2 hours, which is pretty significant no? Long story short, they first offered me flowers to make up (like I'm some depressed girlfriend srsly) which I COULDN'T EVEN ACCEPT cause it was only valid for Dutch/Belgian addresses. Was gonna be the first flowers I ever received too... Then a couple weeks later they told me they were gonna refund me 5 euros or something. Meh. MEHKLASHJLFJHKWSHF.
Anyway, finally got into Bruges at about 12.30-1am, after some Pan!c At The Station, cause I'd missed my connecting trains yada-yada. Finally hopped onto the right ones despite almost no English signboards whatsoever, and the fact that there were no station attendants at that late hour. Kinda panicky really, cause the hostelbookers email told me that the hostel reception was open only till 1am. I finally found my hostel (after quite some wandering about) at 1.50am, to my relief though it had a bar and bars don't close at 1am, so I was in! Hostel was fantastic, had a really good atmosphere and the staff were super friendly, and one of them looked like Ewan McGregor circa Trainspotting or sth, which was cool.
Had a whole day in Bruges exploring, the highlight of which was the evening. By chance I noticed a sign which said FREE HARP CONCERT which intrigued the heck out of the Singaporean in me, so I wasn't going to miss it for da world. Had never heard/seen a harp played either, besides at the Flo+Machine concert, so I was definitely piqued. The most glorious of evenings ensued, just about an hour's worth of beautiful, haunting, incredible music. One of the most enchanting experiences of my life, not even joking. I can't adequately express how entranced his performance left me, I was THAT close to buying one of his CDs even, despite me being a poor student traveler and all. I was one of only 5/6 people in the audience, and I felt incredibly privileged to have heard what I did. What else was cool was that on his guestbook (which, with good intentions but terrible handwriting, I felt compelled to leave an entry in) I saw that 2 other Singaporeans had just been in there at the performance held an hour ago and left a note too, which left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside at the thought of cultured Singaporeans, albeit cheapo ones.
Next day I had the one-duh-full idea of cycling to Ghent. Dumb ideas of life, is where I will be filing this one under. Google maps told me 2.5 hours, so I thought: I'm stronger than Google, buddies pls, imma do this in 2 hours flat ezpz NP. It was raining. About 1 hour later, I was off the maps which my hostel kindly provided me. By absolute chance I met a farmer who'd come out of his house to check his mailbox. I asked: "How do I get to Ghent?" "GHENT?!?!?!?!" "Er, yes." Dubious look. "3 hours!" "Oh. Okay... Which direction shall I go then?" Kinda how the conversation went, or at least the bits that weren't washed away by that insane incessant inbalanced rain. Long story (again, all my stories are long, or I'm just a horrible story teller) short, 4 hours later I arrived at Ghent. Or 6 hours after departing Bruges. I was soaking wet. I'm not ashamed to say that even my undies were soaked. NO JOKES. I was wearing jeans + longjohns AND MY FREAKING UNDIES WERE SOAKED. Nothing more need be said about that rain. And my camera was kinda spoiled too, although not as bad as I'd feared since it was just the LCD display which went bad. Which meant that I couldn't properly frame my shots anymore, which killed me a little inside, but ohwells, life went on.
Following day was a whirlwind. Left Bruges, arrived at Brussels. Left Brussels, arrived at Luxembourg. Left Luxembourg, arrived at Frankfurt. I had about an hour in Brussels, and slightly more in Luxembourg. I'd intended to skip Luxembourg actually, until this conversation at this Brussels train station. "Bonjour, parlez vous anglais? Oh great! How much does it cost to go to Germany?" "Er, which city?" "I don't know, the cheapest one? Frankfurt?" (Cause I'd glanced at a map and it seemed the closest, that or Koln, which to my chagrin I did not realize was Cologne until muuuuuuuuccch later. Pretty dumb.) "Huh. It's very expensive to get into Germany right now, cause of all the Christmas markets.... 115 euros." "!! Luxembourg?" "25" "OK ONE TICKET TO LUXEMBOURG PLS THANKSYOU."
Which is how I ended up in Luxembourg. Tickets from there to Frankfurt were a mere 45 euros, although it involved taking a bus first then switching to a train. Arrived at Frankfurt at about 11.30pm. Decided to walk around the city in the night since I was leaving the very next day, and I always like to explore a city both during the day and at night since I generally find there is a different energy and feeling to them. Before I left though, the only other occupant in my dorm, a chinese girl, asked me if I could wake her up at 7am in the morning as she wanted to check out the flea market. After determining the whereabouts of said flea market, I said oke doke and left. Cooked myself some pasta at 1am before leaving the hostel. Wandered around for quite a while since my hostel was bloody far from the city center and the river, and finally reached back at around 3-4am. Couple hours of sleep later, arose and woke the girl, who promptly went back to sleep even after I woke her up twice. Went to flea market, and BOUGHT A CLOCK. Backpacking Protip No.1 = Don't buy massive items you can barely fit into your bag, which are practically useless, and fragile to boot. Nonetheless, incredibly pleased with my 8 euro clock, not least because it's still working now, despite my initial doubts. I did bend the second hand quite badly, so it's a little crooked now, but you win some you lose some eh?
I also bought a wall hanging from Bruges, which I forgot to mention, for just 4 euros!!!!!! Super bulky, and I will invoke Protip No.1 Again. But yet again, I'm super happy with my buy. It's just, lugging around a wall hanging and a clock and a laptop is NOT the best way to backpack.
Also had my first taste of German Christmas markets, and promptly fell in love with them. Ya, das ist gut! Love all the food, the carousels, the christmassy shops/merchandise, the gluhwein, schnitzels, Bratwürstes (BRATBEST I SAY!) etc. Went to Hamburg in the afternoon. Nothing spectacular there I guess, except that I really liked it. Might be cause it was the first place I went this Christmas where ice paved the roads, and light snow, and maybe something too about how it was a big city but felt rather town-ish. No big tall buildings like Frankfurt, no metal-and-glass giants scraping skies. It was nice. Upon arrival, I left the station and endeavoured to locate my hostel. I had a very rough idea of where it was based on the map of it provided on hostelbookers, which I'd looked at for a short while a couple hours before. Of course I promptly got lost and couldn't recall which direction I was supposed to take. Decided to ask directions, and I saw a lady shoveling snow off the roof of her car. She said she didn't know where it was, at which point I was gonna move on, when she said she could check her iphone for me. Tidings of gladness! So she did, and pointed out the way to me. Full of gratitude, I started walking.
2mins later, still braving the dastardly cold and imposing my supreme will against the ice praying all the while I wouldn't slip and fall, I heard a car horn. Curious, I turned to look. Lo! Can't be very surprising at this stage, but yes it was the lady! So I got into her car all thankful and warmed by her human kindness, where we proceeded to get lost for about.. 20-30mins? Stupid one-way-streets really. She was Russian-German and a student at some uni I can't recall, and yes, she was quite pretty as well. Come on, you saw this coming, why else would I bother retelling this story?? Well anyway after a while we were still lost so I asked her to just drop me off, which she did. On foot to my hostel, I managed to drop my jumper and my sleeping shorts cause my bag was open. Which led to me spending about half an hour searching for them in the cold before finding them lying sadly on the ice on some street I crossed some time back.
I am actually going to fast forward a fair bit cause I'm boring myself here. Went for free tour, met new friends, ate raw herring, left for Berlin! Arrived at hostel, and by pure coincidence met 2 of my new travel budz coming out of the lift! Dumped stuff, and went out for a not-so-lonely dinner, which was kinda more than I was expecting. Brendal arrived sometime later that night, so we spent the next day (CHRISTMAS DAY!) on a free tour (as singaporean as it gets) which was really good. Berlin's gotta be one of my favourite cities, so much history in one city it's not even funny. Almost warrants another visit srsly. From Branden's burger to world wars and cold ones, jazz and underground music scenes, 3/4 days certainly was nowhere near enough for such an epicity. (Yeah I just did that, I combined epic and city cause I'm cool like that.)
Most of my christmas travel buddiez arrived on boxing day (where practically everything in germany is closed apparently, zee germans are crazy) so we proceeded to conduct our own free tour based on our incredible recollections of the tour the day before. It was pretty decent, especially cause that was basically my first day meeting with all these new people, so it could have gone a whole lot worse.
Long ass train ride to Munich where I was sitting all by my lonesome cause I bought a seat while the others got bunks, didn't go too bad thankfully, and clearly prepping me well for the 15 hour bus journey I was to undergo in February. Munchen.. while it was quite nice, I didn't like it quite as much as I did Berlin so it was a bit of a comedown for me. Also it was nearing my 2nd/3rd week of traveling so fatigue probably kicked in as well, as it is wont to do. Really chill day, pretty much just starbucks and.. cooking I think. We didn't have a kitchen in Berlin so we were keen to start our money-saving with some pasta, although it wasn't my best showing I'm afraid :( Not a fan of washing out pasta sauce using water cause you get waaay too diluted sauce. Saying is just.
We also had girl talk apparently cause I somehow found myself alone with 4 girls. Huh. Did go for a short jaunt into the city later at night, partially cause I was in a different hostel from everyone else so I thought I might as well. I somehow just have to see every city twice, once in the day and once again at night, just because you never know what sort of transformation a city undergoes once it gets dark. And away from hordes of tourists too, I guess, and tours and tour guides. Probably the most interesting thing was this rather entertaining busker, especially cause he had a singapore joke in his repertoire. "I'm from singapore. I am single, and poor." And I Can't Get No Satisfaction too. There were at least a hundred of us around him I reckon, pretty decent for a busker no?
Salzburg the next day followed by Luzern, cause they planned not to stay in Salzburg at all. It was pretty much a drive-by supermarket stop really, cause we anticipated switzerland to be incredibly expensive. And rightly so! Must have saved at least 50 euros or something just by doing our grocery shopping in beautiful Salzburg. We did also attempt to climb up to some fortress or castle or old thing before realizing it cost money to enter, so we didn't. Cheapo singaporean student budget backpackers, that just about says it all really! Poor Austrian tourism board. Found an adequate hilltop nonetheless where we.. didn't do anything much really. Did nothing but luxuriate, I wanna say, cause that word is not verb-ified nearly enough (just like the word verb apparently.) Kinda reminded me of climbing that hill in Lyon, which was great cause Lyon's yet another one of my favourite cities of world. As well as being on the cliffs of Ilfracombe, if only because of the company, and the kind of quiet you only get with friends, as paradoxical as that sounds. Especially if you consider how crazy said friends are, and how noisy they can be.. 杀死宝宝, quite possibly one of the worst jokes of ever of life, and one of the best places too.
Armed and ready to go (with groceries), we took yet another overnight into Luzern. This time I had a bed while the rest had mere seats.. Bestsleep2012nojoke. I even had breakfast served so.. Was horizontal for the night, had breakfast in bed, got to take off my boots after hours upon hours of walking.. What better way to end off one's year?? Life was gut, but not for my friends cause they seemed like they had a horrible time of it on those cheap seats.. Oh well you win some and you lose some and I was winner that day :D I know you shouldn't delight in the misfortunes and miseries of others but still...
Luzern was an eye-opener, and not just for the amazing utility of freaking water boilers. We had our dinner purely on the back of some incredible/disgusting use of 1 x boiler. Noodles, hordogz, soup.. It was a feast! But I think something inside of me died that day. I can never look at food the same way. All my illusions shattered. To think that just over a year ago I was young, naive, and hopeful that I might just be able to take my first hesitant steps into the then-wonderful and glorious realm that is food-cooking.. Fast forward 1.5years and you have me, disillusioned, hardened, and bitter to this cold, cruel world. So ends my lovestory with food. Such is life. It even bears italicizing and bolding.
Other than that immensely sorrowful telling of my passage from boy2man, we also went to a playground and scared away kids probably, likely cause I was pretending to be a pervy paedo, went by the lake to discuss the culinary fates of ducks, and went to bridges to pretend to be buskers to be sneered at by the bourgeoisie. DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING / SINGING THE SONG OF ANGRY MEN?! Now is the time for the working class to rise up! The people must act! Okay yes, too much les mis as I am sure you can tell, not to mention I've got The Communist Manifesto sitting prettily on my bookshelf right now. Proletariat power piak pewpew!
I also managed to wake up at 5-ish, which gave me time for a walkabout on my own too. I kinda needed that as well, a couple of days on the road with other people, while huge fun, also meant that I needed a dose of solitude as well. Especially on the last day of the year. You don't get much reflection time when you're spending 24/7 with friends, which is basically what traveling means. Also time for me to make the photo-ops I don't get the chance to during the day when we're moving as a group. Cause sometimes I take like 25 photos of the same thing just so I can sift through all of them to get that one good shot I can be satisfied with so I can show mom that despite all this flagrant spending I am actually producing something of worth..or at least that's how I'd like to think of it.
Had to pop back in by 7 so as not to alarm everyone else, cause we had a train to catch early in the morning to... Interlaken! I'd meant to go to Interlaken during my christmas break of 2011, but ultimately didn't manage to thanks to the alluring French. So it's safe to say I had rather inflated expectations of the place, supposedly nestled in the middle of two beautiful lakes, within spitting distance of the Swiss Alps.. I cannot say I was in any way disappointed, despite not even visiting either of the lakes which is kind of ridiculous considering what the town is even called.. Also despite our initial plan to go skiing/sledding/snowshoeing, none of which came to fruition. We did venture into the Alps, which gave us our first encounter with snow all Christmas! Hamburg was frozen and icy, so that didn't count.
VMG (like Very Much Thanks but Gratitude instead) to Yann Qi for his meticulous planning without which we would have remained very much stuck at lake level, instead of ascending to the heights of Europe. Which mountain to go, train timings, ticket prices, yada yada, it was fantastic. Alien to me, cause I generally just walk up to train station, ask where should I go, and go. And pay through my nose, probably. Which is why I have unnaturally large nostrils. Just sayin, super saiyin.
On then we went up one peak, then another, dodging skiers and snow-sledders alike, spying with little eyes waterfalls.. Unfortunately the places we went were almost exclusively for skiers and their ilk so we almost couldn't find a suitable location for our snowman competition. Bob (our snowman) won!
We stayed on these magical snowcapped slopes through sunset, and into the night for some stargazing too. The weather forecast predicted a clear sky and it sure delivered. Beating a path away from the bright lights of the village/town thing we managed to find a suitable ulu location where Sirius and Bellatrix could smile their benevolent/evil smiles on us. It was good. A brief, transient, ephemeral moment, of peace and quiet in an otherwise rapid and relentless world. Like a shooting star whose beauty fades much, much too quickly, but shines ever the brighter in our memory for its brevity. Simple times.
Made our way back to the hostel, where we cooked up a storm, making a mockery of the clear skies the day had so kindly provided. Patented Garlick Porck Chops™ was served. Met my gege for the first time in my life, surviving all that awkwardness.. Then we went fireworks hunting, as the midnight approached. I'm not forgetting this particular new year's eve in a hurry, whatwith chasing random fireworks sounds/echoes, finally finding an adequate spot where we could see these nightflowers popping only at about 2355hrs, my first time ever playing with sparklers and shutter speed shenanigans.. A pleasant way to spark off (pun absolutely unintended) the new year, and an unexpectedly un-uncomfortable way to ease into my 21st year of existence. I'd always intended to spend my 21st birthday alone, but this was as good an alternative as I could ever have asked for.
Next day we left for Geneva. Decided to walk around for the night instead of booking a hostel cause my flight was at 10am. Decided to walk towards the lake instead of the city, for reasons still unknown. Espied bright lights descending somewhere in the distance. Decided to walk towards airport at about 5.30pm. Missed turn to airport and found myself at French border. Incredulously spoke to Swiss/French border police to determine location. Arrived at Geneve Aeroport at about 8-9pm. In the rain. Spent next 13 or so hours in airport, on uncomfortable chair. Started wishing death upon myself but instead only got about 3 hours of sleep. Boarded plane, and found myself in Bristol!
Bristol was pretty warped, but I did buy myself the Communist Manifesto at a really cool bookshop, so it was pretty good ultimately.
Hmm. Guess that's it for my Christmas trip really. To date the best holiday/trip I've ever had, despite my unkind treatment of it in that mass of words above. It in no way justified exactly how good this trip was, and how good it was for me too. Thoughts I'd never had, thoughts I'd never dared to think, honest reflection, honest sharing, etc etc. I am in many ways a different person than I was before embarking on this trip, so I cannot underscore sufficiently what it meant to me. And some of the most beautiful places I've ever been to as well, so that's just double props! Yep.
I'm less than a week away from my Easter trip to Spain/Portugal so this is just about as overdue as it gets. Huh. Welllll, haven't even talked about Belfast, or Peak District, or Edinburgh again, I have managed to rack up an impressive backlog seriously. Pretty disgusted with self. Er, ciao anyways, gotta leave house in 45mins for London for rugby for support school team GO EXETER!
Flew into Eindhoven and spent a couple hours there, finally decided it was time to leave for Amsterdam, so off I went. 3 hours (or so) later, I woke up and realized I'd reach the final stop on the route, Alkmaar. Yep, had overshot Amsterdam by roughly an hour. In my first act of criminality of the trip (hinting at loads more to come, you have no idea,) I pretended to sleep on the train again until it bounced its way back Amsterdam. Successful criminal endeavors: 1!
Amsterdam was beyond amazing, no one had told me it was supposed to be pretty, but it was. Picture perfect canals, fantastically lopsided buildings etc, I was proper loving it. It's gotta rank among my favourite few cities in the world! (pretending to sound like a seasoned traveler.) No weed, because no. Yeah, I'm not that keen on tripping out, I guess. limahkow was probably pretty damned pissed at me after the 48127th time I got us both lost cause I eschew maps, not to mention my compass was pointing in the wrong direction, something I only found out in Belgium somewhere..... Sorry buddy, and thanks for accompanying me to Amsterdam! Most romantic boat cruise of life, sandwiches, apple juice, ym falling asleep... Perfection.
Went to Rotterdam after, cause I wanted to go to Kinderdijk as suggested by ym's cousin. Was supposed to stay the night in Rotterdam but foolishly booked my hostel in Bruges for the night I was supposed to stay in Rotterdam, so I had to rush things something mighty. Finally reached Kinderdijk in the afternoon at about 3, which was a little windmill farm really, with something like 20 windmills? Absolutely picturesque. Was a tiny place, but I decided to wait out the sunset in the hopes of taking a glorious picture of windmills in the dying light of the sun. Was not to be, however. 3 hours later, sun was set and I was sad. Finally arrived back at Rotterdam, foolishly decided to walk from the bus stop to Rotterdam Central where I was supposed to catch my train into Belgium. Foolish cause I got almost completely lost, I was mapless and WiFi-less so I followed my gut feel really. Not the brightest thing to do when your train is in just 1.5 hours in an unfamiliar city.
But I did, cause sometimes my brain trips over its own cleverness and I end up doing totally retarded things. Did manage to find my way to the train station ultimately, with just minutes to spare, and thanks to some fantastic directions from a pretty nice pretty lady. Little was I to know, my train would be delayed by some 2 hours. Not very pleasant, unfortunately. I did use the time to fill in this compensation form, which promised me a full refund since the delay was 2 hours, which is pretty significant no? Long story short, they first offered me flowers to make up (like I'm some depressed girlfriend srsly) which I COULDN'T EVEN ACCEPT cause it was only valid for Dutch/Belgian addresses. Was gonna be the first flowers I ever received too... Then a couple weeks later they told me they were gonna refund me 5 euros or something. Meh. MEHKLASHJLFJHKWSHF.
Anyway, finally got into Bruges at about 12.30-1am, after some Pan!c At The Station, cause I'd missed my connecting trains yada-yada. Finally hopped onto the right ones despite almost no English signboards whatsoever, and the fact that there were no station attendants at that late hour. Kinda panicky really, cause the hostelbookers email told me that the hostel reception was open only till 1am. I finally found my hostel (after quite some wandering about) at 1.50am, to my relief though it had a bar and bars don't close at 1am, so I was in! Hostel was fantastic, had a really good atmosphere and the staff were super friendly, and one of them looked like Ewan McGregor circa Trainspotting or sth, which was cool.
Had a whole day in Bruges exploring, the highlight of which was the evening. By chance I noticed a sign which said FREE HARP CONCERT which intrigued the heck out of the Singaporean in me, so I wasn't going to miss it for da world. Had never heard/seen a harp played either, besides at the Flo+Machine concert, so I was definitely piqued. The most glorious of evenings ensued, just about an hour's worth of beautiful, haunting, incredible music. One of the most enchanting experiences of my life, not even joking. I can't adequately express how entranced his performance left me, I was THAT close to buying one of his CDs even, despite me being a poor student traveler and all. I was one of only 5/6 people in the audience, and I felt incredibly privileged to have heard what I did. What else was cool was that on his guestbook (which, with good intentions but terrible handwriting, I felt compelled to leave an entry in) I saw that 2 other Singaporeans had just been in there at the performance held an hour ago and left a note too, which left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside at the thought of cultured Singaporeans, albeit cheapo ones.
Next day I had the one-duh-full idea of cycling to Ghent. Dumb ideas of life, is where I will be filing this one under. Google maps told me 2.5 hours, so I thought: I'm stronger than Google, buddies pls, imma do this in 2 hours flat ezpz NP. It was raining. About 1 hour later, I was off the maps which my hostel kindly provided me. By absolute chance I met a farmer who'd come out of his house to check his mailbox. I asked: "How do I get to Ghent?" "GHENT?!?!?!?!" "Er, yes." Dubious look. "3 hours!" "Oh. Okay... Which direction shall I go then?" Kinda how the conversation went, or at least the bits that weren't washed away by that insane incessant inbalanced rain. Long story (again, all my stories are long, or I'm just a horrible story teller) short, 4 hours later I arrived at Ghent. Or 6 hours after departing Bruges. I was soaking wet. I'm not ashamed to say that even my undies were soaked. NO JOKES. I was wearing jeans + longjohns AND MY FREAKING UNDIES WERE SOAKED. Nothing more need be said about that rain. And my camera was kinda spoiled too, although not as bad as I'd feared since it was just the LCD display which went bad. Which meant that I couldn't properly frame my shots anymore, which killed me a little inside, but ohwells, life went on.
Following day was a whirlwind. Left Bruges, arrived at Brussels. Left Brussels, arrived at Luxembourg. Left Luxembourg, arrived at Frankfurt. I had about an hour in Brussels, and slightly more in Luxembourg. I'd intended to skip Luxembourg actually, until this conversation at this Brussels train station. "Bonjour, parlez vous anglais? Oh great! How much does it cost to go to Germany?" "Er, which city?" "I don't know, the cheapest one? Frankfurt?" (Cause I'd glanced at a map and it seemed the closest, that or Koln, which to my chagrin I did not realize was Cologne until muuuuuuuuccch later. Pretty dumb.) "Huh. It's very expensive to get into Germany right now, cause of all the Christmas markets.... 115 euros." "!! Luxembourg?" "25" "OK ONE TICKET TO LUXEMBOURG PLS THANKSYOU."
Which is how I ended up in Luxembourg. Tickets from there to Frankfurt were a mere 45 euros, although it involved taking a bus first then switching to a train. Arrived at Frankfurt at about 11.30pm. Decided to walk around the city in the night since I was leaving the very next day, and I always like to explore a city both during the day and at night since I generally find there is a different energy and feeling to them. Before I left though, the only other occupant in my dorm, a chinese girl, asked me if I could wake her up at 7am in the morning as she wanted to check out the flea market. After determining the whereabouts of said flea market, I said oke doke and left. Cooked myself some pasta at 1am before leaving the hostel. Wandered around for quite a while since my hostel was bloody far from the city center and the river, and finally reached back at around 3-4am. Couple hours of sleep later, arose and woke the girl, who promptly went back to sleep even after I woke her up twice. Went to flea market, and BOUGHT A CLOCK. Backpacking Protip No.1 = Don't buy massive items you can barely fit into your bag, which are practically useless, and fragile to boot. Nonetheless, incredibly pleased with my 8 euro clock, not least because it's still working now, despite my initial doubts. I did bend the second hand quite badly, so it's a little crooked now, but you win some you lose some eh?
I also bought a wall hanging from Bruges, which I forgot to mention, for just 4 euros!!!!!! Super bulky, and I will invoke Protip No.1 Again. But yet again, I'm super happy with my buy. It's just, lugging around a wall hanging and a clock and a laptop is NOT the best way to backpack.
Also had my first taste of German Christmas markets, and promptly fell in love with them. Ya, das ist gut! Love all the food, the carousels, the christmassy shops/merchandise, the gluhwein, schnitzels, Bratwürstes (BRATBEST I SAY!) etc. Went to Hamburg in the afternoon. Nothing spectacular there I guess, except that I really liked it. Might be cause it was the first place I went this Christmas where ice paved the roads, and light snow, and maybe something too about how it was a big city but felt rather town-ish. No big tall buildings like Frankfurt, no metal-and-glass giants scraping skies. It was nice. Upon arrival, I left the station and endeavoured to locate my hostel. I had a very rough idea of where it was based on the map of it provided on hostelbookers, which I'd looked at for a short while a couple hours before. Of course I promptly got lost and couldn't recall which direction I was supposed to take. Decided to ask directions, and I saw a lady shoveling snow off the roof of her car. She said she didn't know where it was, at which point I was gonna move on, when she said she could check her iphone for me. Tidings of gladness! So she did, and pointed out the way to me. Full of gratitude, I started walking.
2mins later, still braving the dastardly cold and imposing my supreme will against the ice praying all the while I wouldn't slip and fall, I heard a car horn. Curious, I turned to look. Lo! Can't be very surprising at this stage, but yes it was the lady! So I got into her car all thankful and warmed by her human kindness, where we proceeded to get lost for about.. 20-30mins? Stupid one-way-streets really. She was Russian-German and a student at some uni I can't recall, and yes, she was quite pretty as well. Come on, you saw this coming, why else would I bother retelling this story?? Well anyway after a while we were still lost so I asked her to just drop me off, which she did. On foot to my hostel, I managed to drop my jumper and my sleeping shorts cause my bag was open. Which led to me spending about half an hour searching for them in the cold before finding them lying sadly on the ice on some street I crossed some time back.
I am actually going to fast forward a fair bit cause I'm boring myself here. Went for free tour, met new friends, ate raw herring, left for Berlin! Arrived at hostel, and by pure coincidence met 2 of my new travel budz coming out of the lift! Dumped stuff, and went out for a not-so-lonely dinner, which was kinda more than I was expecting. Brendal arrived sometime later that night, so we spent the next day (CHRISTMAS DAY!) on a free tour (as singaporean as it gets) which was really good. Berlin's gotta be one of my favourite cities, so much history in one city it's not even funny. Almost warrants another visit srsly. From Branden's burger to world wars and cold ones, jazz and underground music scenes, 3/4 days certainly was nowhere near enough for such an epicity. (Yeah I just did that, I combined epic and city cause I'm cool like that.)
Most of my christmas travel buddiez arrived on boxing day (where practically everything in germany is closed apparently, zee germans are crazy) so we proceeded to conduct our own free tour based on our incredible recollections of the tour the day before. It was pretty decent, especially cause that was basically my first day meeting with all these new people, so it could have gone a whole lot worse.
Long ass train ride to Munich where I was sitting all by my lonesome cause I bought a seat while the others got bunks, didn't go too bad thankfully, and clearly prepping me well for the 15 hour bus journey I was to undergo in February. Munchen.. while it was quite nice, I didn't like it quite as much as I did Berlin so it was a bit of a comedown for me. Also it was nearing my 2nd/3rd week of traveling so fatigue probably kicked in as well, as it is wont to do. Really chill day, pretty much just starbucks and.. cooking I think. We didn't have a kitchen in Berlin so we were keen to start our money-saving with some pasta, although it wasn't my best showing I'm afraid :( Not a fan of washing out pasta sauce using water cause you get waaay too diluted sauce. Saying is just.
We also had girl talk apparently cause I somehow found myself alone with 4 girls. Huh. Did go for a short jaunt into the city later at night, partially cause I was in a different hostel from everyone else so I thought I might as well. I somehow just have to see every city twice, once in the day and once again at night, just because you never know what sort of transformation a city undergoes once it gets dark. And away from hordes of tourists too, I guess, and tours and tour guides. Probably the most interesting thing was this rather entertaining busker, especially cause he had a singapore joke in his repertoire. "I'm from singapore. I am single, and poor." And I Can't Get No Satisfaction too. There were at least a hundred of us around him I reckon, pretty decent for a busker no?
Salzburg the next day followed by Luzern, cause they planned not to stay in Salzburg at all. It was pretty much a drive-by supermarket stop really, cause we anticipated switzerland to be incredibly expensive. And rightly so! Must have saved at least 50 euros or something just by doing our grocery shopping in beautiful Salzburg. We did also attempt to climb up to some fortress or castle or old thing before realizing it cost money to enter, so we didn't. Cheapo singaporean student budget backpackers, that just about says it all really! Poor Austrian tourism board. Found an adequate hilltop nonetheless where we.. didn't do anything much really. Did nothing but luxuriate, I wanna say, cause that word is not verb-ified nearly enough (just like the word verb apparently.) Kinda reminded me of climbing that hill in Lyon, which was great cause Lyon's yet another one of my favourite cities of world. As well as being on the cliffs of Ilfracombe, if only because of the company, and the kind of quiet you only get with friends, as paradoxical as that sounds. Especially if you consider how crazy said friends are, and how noisy they can be.. 杀死宝宝, quite possibly one of the worst jokes of ever of life, and one of the best places too.
Armed and ready to go (with groceries), we took yet another overnight into Luzern. This time I had a bed while the rest had mere seats.. Bestsleep2012nojoke. I even had breakfast served so.. Was horizontal for the night, had breakfast in bed, got to take off my boots after hours upon hours of walking.. What better way to end off one's year?? Life was gut, but not for my friends cause they seemed like they had a horrible time of it on those cheap seats.. Oh well you win some and you lose some and I was winner that day :D I know you shouldn't delight in the misfortunes and miseries of others but still...
Luzern was an eye-opener, and not just for the amazing utility of freaking water boilers. We had our dinner purely on the back of some incredible/disgusting use of 1 x boiler. Noodles, hordogz, soup.. It was a feast! But I think something inside of me died that day. I can never look at food the same way. All my illusions shattered. To think that just over a year ago I was young, naive, and hopeful that I might just be able to take my first hesitant steps into the then-wonderful and glorious realm that is food-cooking.. Fast forward 1.5years and you have me, disillusioned, hardened, and bitter to this cold, cruel world. So ends my lovestory with food. Such is life. It even bears italicizing and bolding.
Other than that immensely sorrowful telling of my passage from boy2man, we also went to a playground and scared away kids probably, likely cause I was pretending to be a pervy paedo, went by the lake to discuss the culinary fates of ducks, and went to bridges to pretend to be buskers to be sneered at by the bourgeoisie. DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING / SINGING THE SONG OF ANGRY MEN?! Now is the time for the working class to rise up! The people must act! Okay yes, too much les mis as I am sure you can tell, not to mention I've got The Communist Manifesto sitting prettily on my bookshelf right now. Proletariat power piak pewpew!
I also managed to wake up at 5-ish, which gave me time for a walkabout on my own too. I kinda needed that as well, a couple of days on the road with other people, while huge fun, also meant that I needed a dose of solitude as well. Especially on the last day of the year. You don't get much reflection time when you're spending 24/7 with friends, which is basically what traveling means. Also time for me to make the photo-ops I don't get the chance to during the day when we're moving as a group. Cause sometimes I take like 25 photos of the same thing just so I can sift through all of them to get that one good shot I can be satisfied with so I can show mom that despite all this flagrant spending I am actually producing something of worth..or at least that's how I'd like to think of it.
Had to pop back in by 7 so as not to alarm everyone else, cause we had a train to catch early in the morning to... Interlaken! I'd meant to go to Interlaken during my christmas break of 2011, but ultimately didn't manage to thanks to the alluring French. So it's safe to say I had rather inflated expectations of the place, supposedly nestled in the middle of two beautiful lakes, within spitting distance of the Swiss Alps.. I cannot say I was in any way disappointed, despite not even visiting either of the lakes which is kind of ridiculous considering what the town is even called.. Also despite our initial plan to go skiing/sledding/snowshoeing, none of which came to fruition. We did venture into the Alps, which gave us our first encounter with snow all Christmas! Hamburg was frozen and icy, so that didn't count.
VMG (like Very Much Thanks but Gratitude instead) to Yann Qi for his meticulous planning without which we would have remained very much stuck at lake level, instead of ascending to the heights of Europe. Which mountain to go, train timings, ticket prices, yada yada, it was fantastic. Alien to me, cause I generally just walk up to train station, ask where should I go, and go. And pay through my nose, probably. Which is why I have unnaturally large nostrils. Just sayin, super saiyin.
On then we went up one peak, then another, dodging skiers and snow-sledders alike, spying with little eyes waterfalls.. Unfortunately the places we went were almost exclusively for skiers and their ilk so we almost couldn't find a suitable location for our snowman competition. Bob (our snowman) won!
We stayed on these magical snowcapped slopes through sunset, and into the night for some stargazing too. The weather forecast predicted a clear sky and it sure delivered. Beating a path away from the bright lights of the village/town thing we managed to find a suitable ulu location where Sirius and Bellatrix could smile their benevolent/evil smiles on us. It was good. A brief, transient, ephemeral moment, of peace and quiet in an otherwise rapid and relentless world. Like a shooting star whose beauty fades much, much too quickly, but shines ever the brighter in our memory for its brevity. Simple times.
Made our way back to the hostel, where we cooked up a storm, making a mockery of the clear skies the day had so kindly provided. Patented Garlick Porck Chops™ was served. Met my gege for the first time in my life, surviving all that awkwardness.. Then we went fireworks hunting, as the midnight approached. I'm not forgetting this particular new year's eve in a hurry, whatwith chasing random fireworks sounds/echoes, finally finding an adequate spot where we could see these nightflowers popping only at about 2355hrs, my first time ever playing with sparklers and shutter speed shenanigans.. A pleasant way to spark off (pun absolutely unintended) the new year, and an unexpectedly un-uncomfortable way to ease into my 21st year of existence. I'd always intended to spend my 21st birthday alone, but this was as good an alternative as I could ever have asked for.
Next day we left for Geneva. Decided to walk around for the night instead of booking a hostel cause my flight was at 10am. Decided to walk towards the lake instead of the city, for reasons still unknown. Espied bright lights descending somewhere in the distance. Decided to walk towards airport at about 5.30pm. Missed turn to airport and found myself at French border. Incredulously spoke to Swiss/French border police to determine location. Arrived at Geneve Aeroport at about 8-9pm. In the rain. Spent next 13 or so hours in airport, on uncomfortable chair. Started wishing death upon myself but instead only got about 3 hours of sleep. Boarded plane, and found myself in Bristol!
Bristol was pretty warped, but I did buy myself the Communist Manifesto at a really cool bookshop, so it was pretty good ultimately.
Hmm. Guess that's it for my Christmas trip really. To date the best holiday/trip I've ever had, despite my unkind treatment of it in that mass of words above. It in no way justified exactly how good this trip was, and how good it was for me too. Thoughts I'd never had, thoughts I'd never dared to think, honest reflection, honest sharing, etc etc. I am in many ways a different person than I was before embarking on this trip, so I cannot underscore sufficiently what it meant to me. And some of the most beautiful places I've ever been to as well, so that's just double props! Yep.
I'm less than a week away from my Easter trip to Spain/Portugal so this is just about as overdue as it gets. Huh. Welllll, haven't even talked about Belfast, or Peak District, or Edinburgh again, I have managed to rack up an impressive backlog seriously. Pretty disgusted with self. Er, ciao anyways, gotta leave house in 45mins for London for rugby for support school team GO EXETER!
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