Things I have cooked

-"Pork chops" with potato wedges, green peas with rice and tomato sauce

-Boiled rice and Bak kut teh (instant but I boiled the pork!)

-Fried pork/turkey with prata/chapatti/tortilla

-Apple caramel sauce

-Pasta/Spaghetti

-Cocotte de porc

Hooray!

The long-lost Update Part 2: Barcelona!

Hey all! Today I've decided to blog under no other influence but my own. I'm supposed to be working on an essay right now and well, blogging is the lesser evil at the moment. Kidding! I'm just feeling content enough to reminisce and write today :)

I'll talk about Barcelona here, because I really feel that this was one entire week that passed so quickly, so dramatically and so beautifully, but leaving me feeling under (not over) whelmed by it all. Out of the ei8ht odd weeks that I've spent here, getting adjusted, one more cannot help but blend the others in a vague mass of time, no matter how much I had expected it to be just a tad different from the rest.

I was glad to leave the apartment for a week, just to get away from household responsibilities (and filth). Taking the metro, bus, and then the plane made me remember the reason why I'm here; that sense of adventure, daring and independence is irreplacable....except by one thing. Seeing mummy and wee lil' Greg again, sitting together and anxiously waiting for me at the bus stop in Placa Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain baby ;)

I get off and we all hug and get excited and kiss and hug some more and start furiously trying to catch up with all that we've missed about one anothers' lives that past 2 months. Greg's confirmation, his final exams, his inter-class soccer tournament that he helped his team win, yea mainly Greg stuff. Then we headed off to have lunch and then back to the hotel for them to sleep away their jet-lag and in the evening we walked down to La Sagrada Familia (The Sacred Family), which is this very big and famous Church that looks like something Willy Wonka may have helped to design, if you notice the kooky architecture.

Joke: We went to this Church 3 times in one week. Twice for mass, once just for the visit. 8 weeks alone in Paris and I've been to mass just once. One week with my mother and we're there thrice.

The next few days truly taught me the value of The Map. I spent our nights in the hotel circling good spots to visit, tracing the metro routes there as well as the important roads we had to follow. All in all we checked out La Rambla (long, crowded, side shop-lined tourist pathway headed toward the ocean), FC Barcelona stadium, the Montjuic Castle (had to take a cable car up there to roam the castle, which was a blast), Parc Guell (very very high point on a hill, overlooking the whole city), the port, and the Mediterranean Sea, which made me feel really satisfied because I had helped give my family a fruitful trip :D

Realized my mother is getting old, because she couldn't walk long distances without needing a drink or a sit-down, which frustrated me cos all I do around here is walk everywhere, exploring, finding new ways to get around. And she got all "blur tourist" too, because I feel she really started to rely on me too much to figure out our plans. And I regret and am very very ashamed to admit that I got annoyed with her, even though that was the one week I could be with her till Christmas. It got us three talking though, one night, and she told me about her fears of her children getting older and more independent and less reliant on her, which made me get sad and then determined that I'll never abandon my mum. Then we went and ate Gelato :D

Greg made really funny jokes the whole time. We saw one guy jogging and he said "I bet that guy's thinking: I really need to pee!" Mummy left her scarf in Sagrada and Greg said "Oh well at least God has a scarf now."

The long-lost Update Part 1: Luxembourg

Gooday friends. Today, i've decided (with the help of some Absinthe) to blog. Update you guys, and future me on the things I've been up to in the damn great city of Paris.

So i shall start with our weekend trip to Luxembourg. Albeit it being with Phyllis, it was overall a really fruitful trip, because we used every single minute we had to DO something. First day we made elaborate plans for sightseeing and over the weekend, realized those plans. Did a tour on the first day- "1000 years in 100 minutes" which took us around the old relics of Luxembourg city, including inside the old castle/fortress, and the ruins around the area. I must say, our tour guide was AMAZING. He was this old man who had the energy of someone half his age, with a deep, charismatic, commanding voice that kept you engaged all the way. Spoke half in English and half in French too, so that was good for my practice :D

That night, we had dinner at a nice Luxembourgish restaurant, pretty posh, awesome food. However, things took a turn for the worst when we tried to walk back to our hostel, but got hopelessly...and i mean hoplessly, lost. For some reason (Phyllis) we walked into a traffic tunnel which stretched for about 1.5km and walked through it the entire way only to exit it and realize that we had put ourselves in the opposite side of the city. Absolutely tired and a little nervous cos it was getting dark and there were no street lamps where we were staying, we scrutinized the map and managed to find the route back-long and arduous as it was. By the end of night 1, my feet were sore, my back was aching, but my experience trove was full :)

Next day, we took an very early bus up to Vianden, north of Luxembourg. Froze my ass off, it was about 10 degrees in the morning and I hadn't prepared for that. Still, it was a beautiful small town, complete with grand castle up the hill- such an important, historic vibe it gave to the town. We were just in time for their Nut Festival! I guess this is the time of year for walnut harvests and they make all kinds of things with their nuts like cakes, liqueur, pastries, etc. which was so much fun cos when there's a festival, there are lots of people, walking around, buying stuff, catching up with friends, which lent such a neighbourly, wholesome feel to the place. the castle was awesome too, to think that I was roaming the very hallways that the Duchess of Luxembourg and family once did. I'm really glad we chose to come to Vianden, off the beaten track, nut festival, actual real-life castle...twas gooood.

After which, we headed back to Luxembourg City, about an hour and a half by train+bus and did another walking tour. The host this time was boring so we left earlier and went to find a restaurant, one in which I had authentic Luxembourgish cuisine-pork collar bone smothered in beans and collar-bone sauce. Yum. Then we took the bus to the train station, got our train back to Paris.

One great thing about this trip, was that when we came home (besides the fact that Phyllis practically spent the 2-hour ride holed up in the train toilet cos her ticket got invalidated and that was her way of evading the ticket inspector, who never showed up, but blissfully leaving me to my music and thoughts) it was nice to think  "Yay i'm home, and home=Paris" :) :) :)

helloooo again

Hey so i'm back blogging again. and yep it's cos i'm a little drunk. and well i have to say, today was pretty much the strangest/worst day i've had in Paris so far. Was supposed to go to a club. Met some friends and went. Got there, forgot to have brought ID, wasn't allowed in. Sneaked in through the side, over the barricade, helped in by a guy from one of my classes. Was found by the crazy, big, scary hulk of a bouncer and was pushed outside. Really! These fuckers can be sooo rude and don't give a crap about man-handling young, delicate ladies like myself. So i forgot my ID, but I had my ticket, which if you aren't a student at Sciences-Po you don't get to have and to be a student at Sciences-Po, you have to be university age and therefore clubbing age, no? French clubs and honestly, the French system/service sector/way of doing things can really suck sometimes. No, scratch that. All the time.

So in the end, after waiting outside for a good 45 minutes, freaking out (I actually teared up) cos my friends were inside and there was pretty much no way i could go home that late at night, I finally got in, because the stupid bouncers decided to let everyone in. So i went in, used the toilet (the real toilet btw y'all) and then got a call cos my roomate who was supposed to meet me in the club was outside but didnt have a ticket. Silly me, told her she could get in without a ticket when you actually can't. So i was like....fuck....she came all the way but no ticket. So i had to leave and come back home with her, and well, about 7 of us left to go home at the same time, cos most of the friends I came with were too pissed off to have fun anyway.

And before the clubbing, the rest of the day, I was supposed to have been working on an essay, but absolutely infuriatingly couldn't because my mind was otherwise occupied. "occupied" meaning it wouldn't have been thus occupied if it wasn't thus involved with a certain boy, whose lack of contact with me that day wouldn't have meant so much if we weren't involved in a certain way. Sigh. I get depressed/overly anxious/incredibly overly insecure verrry easily. I know it's cos he's busy because he has other commitments, i mean you can't expect an exchange student to not have anything to do, but when i'm not in his list of important things, even for a day, it gets to me, really bad. :( How to write an essay on "How far can globalization be a cause for 'permanent austerity' in welfare states?" like that???

And anyway guys, there are things that happened in between the previous post and today, such as : Luxembourg, Italy in detail, the developments of my little exchange fling, meeting my ex future travelling plans, etc. Which I hope, if I have time, and for the sake of having this blog to look back on, read and reminisce one day, I WILL fill in :)

Musee d'Orsay, Champ de Mars, Sacre Coeur and Drunk Yet Again

Ok so in the order in which these events took place: Also: Long post ahead! Take it slow, folks :)

On Thursday, 22nd September, myself, Gergely, Peter and Jack went to visit this museum called Musee d'Orsay. It's basically a museum of impressionist artwork, mainly paintings, some sculptures and oddly enough, furniture. We spent about 2 hours walking around it, but no picture-taking was allowed, so no pictures, soz guys! It was a really cool place though, there were some really good pieces in there, and also some with pointillism in it. Why in the world someone would wanna make a pointillist piece of art is beyond me. But the others were really nice. After that the two guys came over to our place for a visit, and that's when we bought our Milan tickets (see below).

Next day, TGIF, though almost everyday's like Friday for me seeing as I should be but am not studying. Myself, Jack, Phyllis, Peter and this other Chinese-Indonesian-Aussie guy called Ie Wen went to the Champ de Mars, which is this big sprawling garden right before the Eiffel Tower, at about 730pm, with baguettes, cheese, ham and of course, cheap French wine. The view was great, there were these African/Arab guys illegally selling beers, wines and little Eiffel Towers as they usually do and the company was really fun as well. Ie Wen is a really funny guy, Chinese face with Aussie accent and we were talking about all kinds of silly things like Remi Gaillard, this incredibly funny French guy who makes the craziest vids on youtube and also we got to teaching each other words in Hungarian, Tamil and Bahasa. Then we walked home :)

On a side note, I realise I have more fun hanging out with these friends without my roomies around (or at least just the girl) because her way of talking, behaving can be so annoying and insensitive. Very strong Singaporean accent that just irks me and she has this habit of complaining to herself aloud about everything (like I care) and says really insensitive things sometimes like this once I offered our collective stash of milo packets to this friend who stayed the night, and first thing she says, in front of him is, "I was saving the milo for winter". That's fine I get it, good plan actually, but not in front of the guest I just offered some too. She sleeps superrr late at night, almost 5am and sleeps all through the day so me, being sensitive, go out of my way trying not to make so much noise. Which is plain stupid cos it's the daytime already and normal people have to do stuff in the day. I really hope we don't end up fighting one of these days.

And finally yesterday, Saturday, the same 3 guys and me went to up this hill called Montmartre with this really beautiful church on top of it called Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart). Brought some wine and cheese and this time I started drinking alot again. Luckily there was this big public washroom nearby so I could just use that (for a fee of one euro) hehe. And sadly, this time I puked ALOT, and twice, once by some bushes up the hill and the second time in the frikkin metro station, aiyo soo embarrassing.

And here's the most interesting part of this whole post!:  Drunk me flirts with Gergely quite a bit. And it's cool (and a relief) that he flirts back. It was so cute when he offered to piggyback me down the hill and even in the metro station and back home. Nothing happened, I guess cos the other 2 guys were around, but yea, the two of us were pretty "close" the rest of the night. He came back to our place ( I don't know if it was cos he was too tipsy to cycle home or cos he just wanted to make sure I was okay). Strange though, how even after puking in front of him, and last week falling backward from a chair at his place, he still likes me and doesn't think me an idiot :P

This morning I texted him saying I was sorry for behaving so stupidly last night and he replied saying there was no need for me to apologize, hoped I was okay and suggested the two of us should hang out alone sometime. Yay hehe :D

And here's another interesting fun fact. While I was too tipsy to notice, Jack and Gergely went to find one of those Arab/African dudes selling some herbs ifyouknowwhatimean and did NOT have some after that ;)

We're going to Milan!!

Yes indeed, between the 6th and 9th of October. Myself, Gergely, Peter and Jack and guess what? We'll be couchsurfing! Have never done that before so I'm hoping this first time will give me the courage to do it more often in the future. Good thing to have come into the world, couchsurfing. I'm so thrilled because Italy were definitely one of the places I'd wanted to visit since coming here, and my dreams will come true! The food especially, can't wait to eat their fooooood.

Also going to Luxembourg next weekend (1st to 2nd Oct) with my roomie Phyllis. That was a very spontaneous decision and while Jack turned down the opportunity because of his budget (snore), I decided to grab life by the balls and buy my train ticket. Don't know much about Luxembourg except that it's a very small country, wealthy, and with the usual nice European architecture. Probably colder than France too.

Aaand while I'm on the topic of travelling, my mum and Greggles will be meeting me in Barcelona during the semester break between Oct 31 and Nov 6! Can't wait for that but most of all to see them again :) But of course planning trips with my mum can get quite frustrating because we don't agree on hotels, prices, flights etc, and for some reason she's given me the responsibility of picking the hotel. Used to be my parents' job, but guess it's mine now. Hopefully I pick one she likes.

Ok and next blog post coming up.....right after this!

The Rastafarian

Parisien Rastafarian to be exact. So let me explain. I spruced up my couchsurfing account recently, and by the next day received a couple of emails from locals offering to take me around town. One of them was this guy called Eric, seemed nice enough, asked if i would like to meet at this area called Bastille--lots of cafes, pubs, restaurants and lots of lights and activity going on there. And in Paris, where there's activity, there are weirdos.

So i didn't know exactly what he looked like, just knew that he was 35, had hosted like a lot (like 100+) people before, had a lot of positive references from them, but also some really bad ones like Girls Beware! So i thought, what the heck why not.

Got to Bastille, gave him a call and a few minutes later this tall, gangly man rode up on a bicycle. He had a full beard, a big, round white rasta hat, looked Jewish, behaved Jamaican but was full French. We shook hands and took a short walk around the area just introducing ourselves etc. All the while I was surprised why no one was staring at such a strange pairing of a tall white Rasta man and a comparatively tinier, amused-looking Indian girl. He suggested going up to his flat so he could make me a vege burger (but of course, he was vegetarian) and at first I said I preferred not to, but he said he hadn't eaten all day and even made a pit-stop at the supermarket to buy bread, tomatoes, lettuce and vege patties, so in the end i was like okay lah what the heck.

So we went up to his flat which was sooo incredibly tiny, and i realised what a simple life he led. Asked him what he did for a living and he said he sold/exchanged old vinyl records (Reggae music, of course). I didn't ask if it was legally or illegally. Couldn't have made much from it seeing how small his place was. Then he spent about 30 minutes slowly frying his vege patties and cheese slices over a small stove and carefully adorning the burgers with precisely sliced tomatoes and cucumbers and potatoes. And we ate for the next 15 minutes, continuing our conversation about countries we've visited, people we've met etc. He said he's never been to Asia, but been to Mali, Somalia and elsewhere in Africa + Morocco+ lots of places in Europe.

Grand finale. The Marijuana. Not me though, just him. Said he was addicted. I guess that was my cue to say i had an early class and leave. Which he took well and walked me back to the metro, shook my hand and asked if we could meet again. I said we'll see. Overall, the guy is what most would call eccentric. Unconventional. doesn't live by the rules, makes up his own and doesn't give a damn what people think of his lifestyle, job, beard.

Told my roomie Jack about him and he was like "daaammn i wanna meet this guy!". Respect.