The Europe Experience

We arrived at our Nice hostel in the late morning. Its a cosy little hostel up a hill. Its like a resort, for beach go-er, adventurers people to stay in. Immediately, the scuba diving trip caught our eye and we signed up for it. It was a rush and rash decision. We quickly showered and changed into appropriate attire for the dive. I don’t have swimming attire actually but I really want to dive. And then I realise I did not bring my contact lens along, how am i going to see when im under the sea.

But still I decided to go ahead and its a really worthwhile trip. never did i expect i will be scuba diving here in europe, under the mediterranean sea.

I guess this is the best part of the trip for me so far.

with bikini babes(trying to hide their tummies)

after dive

This dive catered to people who had no diving experience. You must be wondering withour proper training or license, how can we dive. Haha, actually we are been ” drag” around under the sea by an instructor each. After we are properly equipped, we took turns to take our dive. The water was freezing cold, but the view below was beautiful. Luckily I can see better with PK’s contact lens, if not i can see nothing at all under the sea.

The air pressure in the ear was rather uncomfortable when we dive deeper, and the breathing through the mouth feels weird too. Whenever I tried to swim, my flippers hit my instructor, so i decided not to swim at all. Got to see school of fishes, corals and starfish! Once I got up, I saw regina puking into the sea. She’s seasick. And they told me moment before i got up, someone pee into the sea.

but it is truly enjoyable!!

After that we celebrated ys bday by having a proper meal in a resturant. We went to this atas resturant, wanting to share 3 main course, but they said each of us must buy 1 dish each. after sometime they compromised on 4 dishes for us. the portion was huge and we cant finish. plus the food was not nice.

Arrived at Paris Gare D ‘est and then took a train to Gare De Lyon to deposit our bags at the train station. The metro in france is expensive. one trip cost 1.6euros. went to do the free tour again. this time round the girls were more enthu about it, because the tour guide was quite cute.

paris free tour

But soon they lost interest in the guide because the weather is freaking cold. its the coldest day we’ve experience so far in europe. we were freezing and none of us were paying much attention to the guide throughout the 3.5hrs journey.

paris free tour 2

Some bits of pieces of things that i managed to absorb is the eiffel tower story. Some crazy guy thought he invented a flying kit, climbed up the tower, and “fly” straight down after that. Also managed to see the line of axis mentioned in “Da-Vinci Code” movie, and of course, visited Lourve and Notre Dame.

after tour

After tour, we visited Champs Elysee, sort of like Orchard Road of France, and Arc de triomphe. Super tired after all these actually, plus the overnight train last night. We headed back to train station to catch the overnight train to Nice.

The last day of germany was rather relaxed. Woke up for the breakfast, checked out of hostel and then we went to walk around the town.

Climbed up the tallest tower in the city(forgot the name of the tower) for 1euro. Quite cheap.

munich from the top

Once again regina demostrated her fear of height by clinging on to the walls like spiderman.

Afterwhich we walk around the market, had some snacks at the beer garden, went to see the English garden. Ended of the day back at the hostel lobby. showered and nua a while before taking the overnight train to Paris.

marketplace

We took a magical journey tour up to visit the castles of king ludwig up near the town of fussen.The journey there took about 2 hrs, and we can see villages rearing cow and managing farms along the way.

Towering over rocky crags at the foot of the German Alps, the Neuschwanstein castle is arguably the most sceneric tourist attraction in Germany. We took a 25 minutes hike up the mountain. While the rest of the group hike up like nobody businesses, the 5 of us struggled to follow their pace. They must be thinking Asians are damn weak and slowing the pace of the tour. The route up was pretty steep, but luckily its not as humid and hot as Singapore. Though tiring, I guess its worth all the effort when we reach the summit at the Marienbrucke bridge, while regina once again demostrated her fear of heights. We managed to help her took a few photos on the bridge though.

Afterwhich, we move to visit the castle itself, which regina claimed is her house, or rather she wanted to buy over the castle. She even asked our guide how to purchase the castle. I guess she’s rather serious about it.

Becos we’re very budget, we did not enter the castle, but just stayed outside to took photos. And the guide took us to visit the Pollath waterfall gorge.

hike up Neuschwanstein Castle

Castle and Waterfall

It was a rather interesting story about King Ludwig and his rule. He seemed to be a pretty nice king, except that he’s overly enthuasiasm about castles and arts, thus over spending his budget to build so many castles. In fact, the Neuschwanstein castle is only 1/3 complete and he only managed to stay 172 days in the castle before his mysterious death. Until today, his death remains a mystery, which in a way fulfilled his wished to “remain an eternal engima”.

Was pretty tired after the tour, had some cheapo food for dinner and went back to hostel. We’re beginning to get sick of bread and cheeseburger every meal. Pk and I even packed food from hostel breakfast to save on lunch expenses. Haha, ssuch is the state of budgetness of our trip. Rather sad isn’t it? The hostel here is not as cosy as Berlin’s because its a 12 bed mixed dorm, where we can occasionally see couple doing kinky things on their bed, and even some gays-in action.

Now we’re waiting for our 11hours overnight train to paris. We ran into some trouble about reserving train tickets, thus forcing us to make changes to our original plans. But luckily most problems are settled as of now. Can’t wait to get the Nice. The next 2 days we’ll be on overnight train though, will be super super tired and grumpy.

Bye Bye Germany, Hello France!!

@ MarienPlatz

Arrived at Munich, the southern part of Germany, bordering area with Austria. This city is very different from Munich. Its more crowded, bustling of life, have a huge shopping area, toilets can be found much easier. Munich has a much longer history than berlin, plus its the birthplace of the Nazi’s party. Furthermore there are castles at the Bavarian area(outlines of Munich centre), and a very strong culture of beer brewing of drinking.

munich attractions

We took the one day free walking tour again. The tour was rather interesting. We learn about the night of the broken glass (which lead to the extermination of jews), the legend of the Devil’s footprint(the church which was said to be built by saturn), history of beer garden(where guys pee literally at the place they sit to drink their beer), German resistance memorial(why is it hidden all around the city instead of gathered in a obvious place), the old looking new town hall and the newer looking old town hall, the orgin of Okterberfest, King Maximilian, and many more. I cant remember all, plus i cant show all photos here also.

becos we are super tired and hungry, we decided to activate our one country one proper meal policy and go into this restaurant to order some pork knuckles and steaks. cost up to 42.50 euros in total. ouuuchhh

Feast

Will be visting the castles the next day, but i shall update again another time.

trained down to sachsenhausen concentration camp, one of the largest and most important camp during Hitlet’s 3rd Reich. The scenery there is beautiful, with bright blue sky and clear white clouds, but it gives a chilling feeling when touring around the camp, with images and vidoes of the time during Hitler’s rule.

Afterwhich we visited the “cbd” area of berlin. nothing much there, except its a very contrasting part of the city, with high rise tall buildings which look out of place. Berlin, a city which was 90% destroyed during the world war, are still carrying the scar of the wars.

Sony Centre

Had an early night rest because the next day we are catching a 4am train to Munich.

The sun rises at 5am in the morning and sets at about 10pm here in berlin. So basically the night only last of about 5hrs or so.

We woke up at around 8am and helped ourselves to breakfast. It was quite a feast with cereals, bread, eggs, milk, juices and fruits all available in the kitchen

Hostel in Berlin

Took the metro to visit some attractions. Managed to try Curry Wurst! Very Yummy!

very yummy currywurst

Went for the Berlin Free Walking tour today. Not only we got to visit many of the city attractions, we also gain some understanding on berlin history and its significance.

holocast memorial, wall, hitler's bunker site

berlin wall

gift shops with cute items

We were to last 3 passengers to board the plane.

Becos we were happily taking photos at the butterfly garden inside terminal 3. The flight was good because its a direct flight plus the food and entertainment are nice too.

Reached frankfurt, had some problems meeting up with PK and Regina. Luckily we all managed to gather in the aiport together eventually. Slept over at the airport.

Validated our Eurail Passes, got abit lost at changing the trains to Berlin. The railway system in Germany, or in Europe in general, is like a million times more complicated than S’pore’s, with regional trains interconnecting with inter-country and inter-cities trains. Took the 4 hrs ICE train to Berlin, which was pretty comfortable and nice.

Arrival at Berlin

unhappy navigator

Was a little lost trying to locate our hostel. Plus the number of luaggages we’re carrying made travelling very difficult. I always thought backpackers were cool walking around in their big backpacks, but I felt that I was travelling with 4 other Ninja Turtles while trying to figure our way to the Hostel.

The hostel is a very cosy apartment. Shall blog about it next time when I’m free.

Had Kebah for lunch/dinner

It started to rain, and the temperature is about 10-12 degree. When the windd blow its really freezing, especially with the attire that they are wearing.

Regina acting 'cool' in her skirt.

We only managed to visit a few attractions because of the rain.

one of the horse farted

Brandenburg Tor

Finally, the much anticipated europe grad trip is coming!

Yes we’re flying tomorrow to Frankfurt!! woohoo.

Finished packing my stuff, feeling bored so I decided to start this first entry here in Singapore.

A brief description of the trip!

Frankfurt – Berlin – Munich – Paris – Nice – Madrid – Barcelona – Rome – Naples – Florence – Venice !!

All in 30 days!! Exciting isn’t it. All the excitement will be updated here, unless I become lazy or I have no time or laptop to use.

I’ll be travelling with Regina, Siewee, Yuet Shan & P.K

The 5 adventurers

Okie, I think they’ll kill me straight away when they get to see this picture. So if there isn’t a 2nd entry, you should know why. hah.