Actually the last post was already about Freiburg but yah it was written in Chinese. Was kind of emotional after meeting the Schmid family again on Saturday so yup. Writing about it again, this time in English. Na ja... this is by no means a translation of the last post though.
Can't believe it. 2 years and I promised to come back. It was on 25 March that this promise was made true - when I followed the excursion organized by the International Office to Freiburg. That day tho was the last day to snow as well. On the way from Konstanz to Freiburg through the Black Forest, the view was just so superbly spectacularly indescribably breathtakingly irresistible. Tried to take some photos and too bad they did not turn up as well taken from the moving bus. And Schwarzwald (black forest) was on that day to me simply Weißwald (white forest). If you think the snowing in the spring is not enough, muahaha.... come to Black Forest and take a look. They are at least a few inches high.
So reached Freiburg at around 10.30am. The bus stopped at Karlsplatz and it was snowing heavily. (And yes therefore, no pictures taken as later the snow melts into rain) And directly we walked from there to the magnificient Münster - one of the few structures that remained mostly intact after the city centre was heavily bombed on 27 November 1944. Went there again and thereafter, had lunch at the Freiburg University Mensa. Oh man.... it just reminds me of the times back during the Immersion.
So yup, couldn't wait to see family Schmid already. 2 years of LOOOONG wait! So after lunch I quickly disappeared from the group and went to take the Straßenbahn (tram) to Munzinger Straße, and Rita and Berthold picked me up from there. They are just always so nice. Rita even baked a Sauerkirschtorte (sour cherry cake)! Ok I dunno if it is specially for my visit but she baked the cake. And one of their granddaughters, Lisa who is now going to be 7, was so excited that she came over with her father Frank. Although it was a short visit of about 2 hours, it was really worth it. We chatted a lot on different things, including my parents arrival on this coming Friday. Hehe... will be picking them up from Zurich airport on Thursday afternoon. I myself have not been to Zurich till now. Too expensive le the ticket.
You know, I did not realize it until that very moment the chartered bus entered Freiburg that I really missed Freiburg. For a short moment I pondered on my initial decision for Konstanz instead of Freiburg. Really feel the connection I had towards Freiburg although I stayed for only one month there. But that does not mean I dont like Konstanz. Konstanz is still a very nice place to stay in. Just that I personally prefer Freiburg. Muahaha.... maybe this is called fate.
Yup anyway, they sent me back to Karlsplatz at 4.20pm to get back to the bus which would leave at 5pm, and so I reached Konstanz at around 7.15pm.
From Sunday onwards, the clock is now one hour faster (i.e. 6 hours difference with KL/Sg time) and Spring has officially begun.
And just as I thought I am so unlucky to have missed all the snow because Europe has been experiencing one of the warmest summer ever, maybe someone up there has heard about my wishes, and while in Stuttgart over the weekend the temperature across the entire region of central Europe dropped.
On Tuesday morning, it started snowing!!!! First time in my entire life I can see, touch, feeeeeeel and smell snow!!! No I am not that excited to taste snow. hahaha
Yup so for the past few days the temperature in the morning or at night stays around 0 to -2 degrees celcius. So during the day when the temperature is higher at about 3, the snow melts. It's really 好景不长 ah....
The morning surprise on Tuesday just outside my hostel...
A view of my hostel. In Snow!
Holdin a snowball in my hand
Rejoicing the arrival of snow. It snowed heavily on Thursday morning.
So 17 days after arrival and having a significant amount of free time, together with another about 14 other exchange students in 3 groups of 5, we headed to Stuttgart for a weekend retreat.
Stuttgart is 140km north of Konstanz. Not too far away in Malaysian terms (slightly shorter than KL -Ipoh distance) but the train (Regional Bahn) takes 3 hours. It is also the capitol city of the state Baden-Württemberg and is the birthplace of some cars like Mercedez, Audi, Porsche etc.
For most of my new friends it is a one day trip but I decided to stay for a night at CC's place. So got to see his room. haha... His room is significantly more expensive than mine (he pays 80 Euros more per month), but 一分钱一分货. Think his facilities are better than mine. Broader. But nevermind la. As long as I have a liveable space its good enough for me. :)
Anyway, ahaha.... had a very very close encounter to being fined 40 Euros for illegal travelling. Haha... decided to risk once travelling from Hauptbahnhof (main train station) to CC's place
which is like 3 stations away. Yeah according to CC he only got checked once in train before in these 17 days in Stuttgart. So I won't be so lucky to get one. But before we left for the S-Bahn station, I decided to get the Baden-Württemberg ticket first for Sunday's travel and also, just in case. Haha....
And I think I should have bought 4D that day. Or Lotto in German version. The ticket person really checked. "Fahrschein bitte". He said in an unfriendly way. At that moment, none of us spoke a word. Haha.. I quietly took out my ticket (which is valid only for the next day and its only 9pm) and gave it to him. Preparing to pay 40 Euros liao. But he did not say anything, just chopped and returned to me.
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Heng arr!!! hahaha... both CC and I were really speechless and like 'shit' already. hahaha it was a close brush from being doomed. Haha.... was so scared the after effect stayed with us for the rest of the night. Can't even forget the vividness of the very second.
Yup anyways, got to meet other NUS pple on Sunday! Finally a mini gathering. TP, YZ, XL met up with us and we went to Schloss solitude! It's somewhere at the fringe of Stuttgart and is a small villa built and owned by the King or Duchy of Wurttemberg. Nothing fantastic about it. Haha.... Got to meet SW also for 5 minutes before my departure to Konstanz (yes it takes 3 hours so have to leave like at 4pm).
So that was the weekend. Haha.... what comes next? :) Stay tuned.
Haha... tooo lazy to post blogs lately. Until Monday it wasnt laziness but was too occupied with the Referat. Finally it ended after talking about a total of 3 countries. Yup anyway, went to Friedrichshafen by taking a Catamaran on 14 March, it is a high-speed boat with a special structure designed to be something like aerodynamic I dunno how to describe.
Friedrichshafen is also the place in which a lot of the aircrafts today are built. It was one of the most important aircraft producing place in Germany during the World War II so you can roughly guess its destiny by the end of WW II - Total Destruction. Anyway, it is where Zeppelin first made his airship (Luftschiff). Does Graf Zeppelin ring you a bell?
Yup so visited the Zeppelin museum. The whole journey on the Lake of Constance takes about 45 minutes. Friedrichshafen is located on the east coast of Lake Constance, so it is quite a fair bit of distance. But along the way the view is just.... what word should I use... exasperating? does this word even exists... haha... anyway... it's really breathtaking.
Tried to upload pictures here but you know what, I really hate uploading pictures to my blog. Whenever the pictures appear, they must appear before my text, and change the layout of the text. And the uploading takes super duper long. Whoever wants to view the picture, I have posted them up on my facebook account. So take a look at them if you are interested.
As promised, here are some pics taken upon the first days of arrival in Konstanz.
Taken at the bridge connecting the town on 2 sides of Rhein River
Supposed to be very nice when the birds all fly in circles and in groups!
Imperia: Guess what was her profession?
Konstanzer Münster - The Cathedral in Konstanz (yes, almost every town in Europe has a cathedral)
New friends! From left: Karin from Sweden, (behind) Peter from Czech Republic, Zcuzca (pronounced something like Suzie) and Anita from Hungary, Victoria from Mexico and Fatih from Turkey
It is said that Konstanz is quite foggy in winter. This is on the morning of 6 March 2007 Tuesday. Of course it cannot be compared to our Haze.
I think I am addicted to the internet already. Felt terribly miserable when the server in my hostel was down yesterday - the whole day! Maybe get used to the convenience back in NUS on campus already. Should try to resist the temptation, but I think it has become part of me. Need internet for many many things. Convenient mar rite?
And looking at how the number at the blog counter jump everyday, it was suggested to myself that maybe I should blog more hor. It's already one and a half weeks since I came to Konstanz. Have been settling in and adjusting to the environment pretty well. One thing now is to find a rice cooker small and economical enough to get rice cooking started. It's already like weeks since I last tasted rice and yeah actually I do miss rice. haha... everyday eat bread la pasta la pizza la.... the only thing that I am happy having is the Italian Ice cream! Found one shop even cheaper than in Freiburg ... Haha only 60 Euro cents per scoop! Brought a bunch of my new friends there on Sunday afternoon (well it is apparently the only shop that is open on Sunday on that particular part of the town and the town centre was crowded with people - people mountain people sea) and they liked it! Will surely bring my parents there to manja their tastebuds. (Relatively) cheap and lecker!
And so yeah, the intensive course was alright. Now have to prepare to the referat on Friday. Gosh I wonder how much I gotta do. Have to get powerpoint started already! But going to Friedrichshafen tomorrow. It is another town located on the opposite side of the Bodensee (Lake Constance), still in Germany and Baden-Württemberg but close to Bayern (Bavaria).
Should be fun! Gotta recharge my camera batteries. hehe...
Haha... if you imagine the blog entries as episodes of a series then maybe at the first screen now you would have seen the three words "One Week Later" below the screen. Haha... ok nevermind it didnt mean anything.
Yup so finally a looooooooooooong wait of about one week or so after my arrival at this beautiful lake town, I finally have internet connections in my room now. At a cost of 70 Euros up till the end of my stay here. ya actually quite cheap already la if you split it up into 5 months thats like 14 Euros per month.
Anyway, back to the past week, the first few days after arrival was horrid. Tired, bored, lonely and depressing despite the weather being good in the weekend. Nevertheless, now I am settling down well. (After TONNES of formalities being done, will write a post just on the German formalities later) Made new friends since the first day. The new friends are cool and they are really international. From Japan to Korea to Malaysia (that's me, haha) or Singapore or NUS to Hungary to Romania to Poland to USA to Australia to Sweden. And a lot of them can speak good German! In my group there are already 4 Swedes. Haha... just imagine. But they are all cool people la :)
Visited the Roman Bath and took a handful of pictures at the Royal Crescent and Circus in Bath today. Did not spend much time in the town coz have a 6pm train to catch. That means will be leaving in about an hour or so and dunno have to wait until when to get the next internet access. It would be a 3 hour train journey from Bath to London to Stansted airport, then overnight there. Hopefully everything will go on smoothly la.
Yup, things are more or less packed. Ready to go at anytime. There it goes, one week of vacation in the UK. Really appreciated TW's willingness to spend time hosting us.
