Wednesday, December 17, 2008
At home / Zu Hause
If you look at my travel schedule on the right panel, I wasn't in Zurich home pretty much for the past 2 weeks.
I have stayed obediently in Zurich for the whole of november as I couldn't skip my block course, everyday was just about waking up early to go for class and then do some exercise at the sports hall in the evening. Well, it was quite a nice feeling, made me felt like I am a really Zuercherin.
But my travel addiction kicked off as soon as december came! I spent a week in the Netherlands and Belgium with weishan. Almost all the singaporean exchange students here have been to Amsterdam, so how could I miss that out! Furthermore, our air ticket was just $60+ SGD each?!
Got to see what I am supposed to see once I reached Amsterdam because I stayed right in the "Heart of Amsterdam" (hostel name), which is in red light district! The girls were really shaking their butt off in their glass windows and tapping on the window when potential customers walk pass. Some are really hot and skimpily dressed, some aunties just opened their legs wide and looked bored. Haha!
It was also all about fries, waffles, febo and SEAFOOD in netherlands! I am really so deprived of seafood here in Switzerland, where I have Germany on top of me, France at the left, Austria at the right and Italy at the bottom.
Spent relatively fewer days in Belgium but again, it was all about eating! A must was to try Mussels in Brussels! Man, me and weishan shared 44 mussels in a pot! and of course, we bought chocs back. Nevertheless, Belgium was abit too touristy for me. Can you imagine a whole row of restaurant selling mussels but nothing else?!
We were then on our way home by a 8hrs direct train....
But thats not the end of story for me... I didn't bother unpacking my bag, except to take out my shopping goods. I managed to slept on my comfy bed in my tiny room for 2 nights then I set off for Germany once again! It was my 4th visit into Germany and I finally understood why I like Germany so much. Because food is cheap and good, and also the german-speaking environment is good and conducive for me! Most people speak high (clean) german and it felt good when I could understand them and vice versa. Something that would never happen here in Zurich. =( Even though I complain so much about here, I think I would change my exchange country even if given a second chance.
Anyway, I spent a night in Basel euroairport. The airport wasn't operating at night, but luckily it didn't chase homeless ppl like me away and I managed to rest for 5hours at the cold and dark airport alone! I could even hear water dripping from the ceiling and it doesn't help on the fact that the airpot is really small and nothing was opened! Anyway, that adds to the list of one of the craziest thing I ever did on my exchange! Not that I chose to, but I would miss my flight if I took train in the morning.
Without good sleep, I reached hamburg in the morning and managed to meet up with my Hamburger friend who showed me around and kept me accompanied for a day. Really glad to have him around.
As it was off peak season, I had a 4 beds hostel room with a tv all to myself! How wonderful! I paid the price of one but use the room for 4!wahahhaha... But then again, it somewhat felt scary to be alone in such big room... too tired to care anyway!
From now on, the cycle of bad and good sleep continued....
I spent 8 hours travelling by train all the way from Hamburg to Dresden, eastern germany. I changed trains 4 times altogether and spent 1 hr trying hard not to fall asleep in one train station. Man, whenever I was deep asleep, I gotta wake up and change train. So when me, myself and I finally managed to meet up with fellow Singaporeans in Dresden, I was pretty much like a zombie.
the 2 nights sleeping on a queen size bed in Dresden was like heaven
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then once again, luckily it was the last time, hopefully... I took a TEN hours train back to Zurich! This time, I changed trains 3 times. My phone batt was flat and I didn't have anything to read, so imagine all i did for that 10 hours was just sitting, eating, sitting, going toilet, sitting, shifting position, sitting, opening my bag to munch some more, sitting, crossing my legs, sitting, uncrossing my legs, sitting, sitting and sitting.
I was literally counting down to the second that I would reach my room during the last hour of ride. Horrible!
But what to do, my train ticket was dirt cheap! haha~
As much as I love to be environmental-friendly, I would very much prefer to fly because travelling long hours in train was no serious fun at all.
it is always good to be back home!