I am on a high today...

The weather is beyond beautiful! The skies are blue, the sun is shining and the temperature is 22 deg Celsius. It's like Singapore but with airconditioning! I've been wearing skirts and cropped pants the past 3 days...and I LOVE it! I think I even have a slight tan from playing tennis. I can't wish for anything better than this!

Well, let me just tell you a little bit more about what's happened the past 2 days or so. First, we have a new neighbour...it's this Vietnamese girl who has a German boyfriend...erm...well, I guess I have to assign her with something to remember her by. I actually met her like 2 years ago or so...she still has the same boyfriend...which makes me wonder how come I can't stay long with the same person. But I guess that's not like even my worry right now...I mean you can only think about such things when you're actually already in a relationship I guess.

Anyway, I was getting ready to sleep already, cos I had a 7.30 class the next morning. BUT...I hear hammering and lots of noise! So I open the door and get the shock of my life! There are tons of things sitting in the Waschraum. TONS of boxes, suitcases and just lots and lots of clutter...so much that we were only able to use 1 out of the 4 sinks we have in there. Blah...and they kept making noise. Hello, it was way after 10pm...fortunately, I can fall asleep in spite of the noise. I thank Remy Ong for this...I was inspired by him..or rather, his "sit in the middle of the room, play very very loud music and try to concentrate on one thing" training. Once I read that in the newspaper...I figured that if he could do it, I can too...and it has worked...not that I listen to loud music and try to tune it out...but I learn how to ignore the less important things and concentrate on what I want.

Oh, I got invited to my presentation partner's housewarming. I've never been to a housewarming here..and I can't remember what housewarmings in Singapore are like. So I have no idea what to bring. But I've decided to bake cookies. If they don't like it, I'll just eat it on my own. Fu Wei's coming along too...she may be blur but she's not shy...which makes her the perfect candidate. I thought of her immediately when he said I could bring a friend along. But erm, seeing that I don't know anyone there and I generally don't like to hang out with lots and lots of people at the same time...I just might leave early. Or maybe I'll get to know some nice people. I'll let you know what happens. I also wonder if people actually show up punctually for such things...don't intend to be there at 8pm sharp in any case, although I really prefer to be punctual.

Ok...so anyway, I had Swedish...I started daydreaming while a CD was playing...it's not that it was boring, but I didn't understand anything...so I kinda drifted off. I feel a bit sad lah, cos I do wanna be good at other languages...but the thing is, I guess when I know I'm bad at something, it's very very hard to feel motivated. Blah. I have to give myself a kick in the ass and start doing something.

Then somehow, the rest of the day went by...and before I knew it, it was time to sleep already...I did sleep a little later than I planned to, but I still managed to drag myself out of bed somehow, at 4.45am.

Fu Wei couldn't find her wallet...and she also forgot to bring her sport ID...she is really blur man...she also left her keys in the toilet when she went out just now. After we finished swimming and left, she realised that her wallet was in her bag...but she really did forget her ID.

Anyway, swimming didn't go so well today...I just couldn't get the breaststroke right...blah...it's tough...but I wanna get it right...and then, I tried the front crawl...AWFUL...I couldn't swim straight and I practically ended up drinking a lot of water. So paiseh and also very tiring...sigh. Oh well...will try harder next week...hope it will be more like last week, when the coach said that I'd finally got it...well, I lost it this week in any case. Still, the air was nice and fresh when we got out and I don't regret having to wake up early to go for swimming. It was already bright at 5.20am...very very bright...I love summer!

Then I had class at 11.10...decided to wear a tank top and cropped pants...very summery...most other people actually still had long sleeves on...but I am glad that I went like that...the temperature was perfect. The class was pretty interesting too...the prof always has interesting info tidbits for us. For example, he told us today that the most searched word on the Internet before 1993 or something like that was "sex" and after 1993, it was "mp3"...haha. Illegal downloads!

Then, back home, had lunch and went off for tennis. Fu Wei wanted to come along and see the coach...but she was still marinating meat, so she said she'd join me later. We had silly drills again today...as I mentioned before, I am not a fan of drills and I freely admit that I have no "Ballgefühl" at all. Still, it seems to belong to tennis...so just had to do lah. The coach is really kinda bratty...like some kid who hasn't quite grown up...but he's also so cute...and somehow, he really does have that tennis player body...even though I'm not one who cares about what guys' bodies look like. I have this urge to pinch his cheeks...yeah...he looks like a small boy whom adults would pinch and go "sooooo cuuuuuuutttttteee!". Ok, but on to my problems...I keep hitting the ball while I'm still running...we're supposed to run, stop and THEN hit...oops...I still need a while to get used to it. But for some reason, people keep throwing the balls further from me than for other people...so I end up having to run more than the others. Blah. Maybe they are not so good at estimating the distance in a different direction (everyone's right-handed except for me and this other guy). Still...I'm really beginning to like these tennis sessions. All I need is my own, lighter, bigger tennis racquet...then I won't feel like my arm is aching and I can concentrate on staring at eye candy...oh...and playing tennis ;)

Rostock, Stralsund and Warnemünde















I went to Rostock, Stralsund and Warnemünde on a trip organised by my uni's International Office. It was dirt cheap! Only 30 Euro for 3 days 2 nights...in addition, I only spent 35 Euro...which is really not much, considering how the train ticket there and back would've cost me that much already, not including accommodation , museum tickets, tours etc etc. And, this was the furthest north in Germany that I've ever been...we were at the Ostsee area.

The only bad thing was having to wake up at 3.45am on Saturday so we could catch the bus. Fu Wei made pau...I ate a ton of them. I ate a lot on the bus, cos I was just so damn bored. It was a 6 hour bus ride!! But the good thing is that we could check in once we got there! Our youth hostel was on a ship! You can see it in one of the photos. It's a pretty big ship...it has a hotel and offices in it too. It used to be a training ship during GDR times. It sailed to Cuba regularly...well, it seems quite novel at first, but erm, it was not exactly very clean...so we got less excited about it after a while. The showers were like those at the swimming pool...I guess I've gotten used to seeing strangers naked, so I don't really care anymore. The good thing is that you realise that everyone has a different body, so you stop having stupid unrealistic expectations of yourself.

Anyway, we decided to explore Rostock's city centre after dumping our bags. Rostock has a population of about 600,000, which is more than Dresden's population. And yet, when we drove in to Rostock, I didn't have the feeling that we were in a big city. It was very quiet and nice...and one thing that really struck me was the lack of "Plattenbau", which are very typical for the GDR states. Instead, there were lots and lots of pretty houses and apartment blocks...everything seemed clean and new-ish looking. Of course, there were empty buildings at the outskirts and stuff, but the city centre was gorgeous. It was really small and we basically saw the main attractions within the afternoon, but there's something about Rostock that appeals to me. It seems very peaceful. We went to H&M and other clothes shops...why?? Cos it was colder there than we'd expected..so we needed to get more stuff to wear. I bought a new knitted cardigan in green...green used to be my fave colour when I was a kid. I'm slowly beginning to like it again. But I did feel kinda bad because I hadn't intended to buy anymore clothes this semester...but what to do?? Sigh. We also walked around for a long long time looking for a toilet! Be thankful all ye who have lots of free toilets in Singapore! We ended up at McDonalds where the toilet wasn't very clean but we still had to pay 25 cents to get in. We went to a supermarket to get stuff for the trip back on Monday, cos shops aren't open on Sundays and public hols.

Then we got back to the hostel...and discovered that our "nightwatchman tour" which was to last more than an hour and a half, was on FOOT! Sigh...anyway, we had to walk right to the other end of Rostock, which actually wasn't THAT far. We walked along the pier...and then we met this guy dressed up as a nightwatchman. He told us quite a few interesting stories, like I finally found out why there are so many red brick buildings in the north of Germany: they didn't have many natural building materials, like sandstones, which are used a lot in Dresden, for example. So, they had to manufacture their own building materials! And, can you imagine, a bricklayer can lay between 60-80 bricks an hour...ok, it might not seem like much, but laying bricks isn't that easy! And the bricks actually took 2 years to manufacture!! Amazing! He also told us about the job of being a nightwatchman. Like how come they wore hats with very wide brims: at night, the streets were pitch dark...and some pple threw their waste out the windows...so...they had to be protected! And also how most nightwatchmen were thought to have some disability or flaw because working during the night would hide it. It was partly due to the Middle Ages belief that disability was result of someone sinning and incurring the wrath of God. Oh...and everyone wanted to take photos with the tour guide in his costume!

Then five of us had dinner in this brewery. One of the girls order a pork knuckle...which I think would've have tasted great with ketchup...but you can't just ask for ketchup here. The food was so so, but the atmosphere was pretty good. It wasn't too loud and we could talk comfortably. The decor was also not bad.

The next morning, I woke up early and deciced to go on a walk with Liu Jing, who is Fu Wei's friend...we walked around the ship and realised that there really isn't much to see or do on a ship. We then went for breakfast with Fu Wei...it's great to go early, cos there aren't so many other pple there and it's peaceful. The food was pretty good. I like the sausage and cheese...and the Fleischsalat wasn't bad either...OH...and the scrambled eggs...HEAVENLY! Then we went to Stralsund...but since we got there too early, we had to play charades...Guess the Country! I totally didn't get what the pple acting Singapore were doing...but ok...haha, at least they know Singapore. Then we had a tour in the Marine Science museum...the tour was like damn boring lah...there was way too much talking and we went to every single exhibit on the first floor. :( I began to wander off by myself after a while. What I found interesting was the amount of salt in sea water and the finback whale's penis, which actually looked more like a huge bone or giant curved toothpick...but if you look at it carefully, I guess you can make out the opening. Copulation time: 5 to 20 seconds. I wonder what it looks like...I mean finback whales are HUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEE!!!! The aquariums were nice too...they had big turtles and sharks and stuff. But it definitely got boring after a while. So we went to a cafe and had lunch...I had cake..yummy Schokotorte! It was really really good! It wasn't too heavy or too sweet...and it was pretty!

Then we went on another guided tour. Like I was sooo sick of guided tours by then! But the tour guide was kinda interesting. Liu Jing suggested that he might've been a military man when he was younger. He had this fixed plan in his head and was very determined to stick to it. He looked slight perplexed when everyone kept stopping to take photos...Liu Jing and I practically ran behind him to keep up and he said to us: "You're the only ones who are fast. All your friends are so slow!" Haha...but I think it was ok...I guess I'm kinda like him...I like things to be carried out as planned and I refuse to wait for the dawdlers! If they are late, I will just leave without them, so I guess I cannot be a tour guide. I do not suffer fools and latecomers gladly...that's for sure. Stupidity and lateness rank highly among my pet peeves, though Liu Jing and I have noticed that we are both a little more tolerant towards girls who are late than guys who commit the same mistake...of course, it depends on how much you actually like the person...I mean with some of my good friends, I know they tend to be late...so I don't take it so seriously...but with other pple...I think I'll just leave lah. Still, in my ideal world, people would be punctual and also, they would only put "Away" or "Busy" on MSN if they were REALLY away or busy. If there are people you don't wanna talk to, why don't you just delete them or block them? Or why did you even add them in the first place?? And, people also wouldn't say, "That was fun, why don't we do this again sometime?" if they didn't mean it. Sigh. Say what you mean for goodness' sake!

Anyway, then it was time to go back to Rostock...and finally when we got back, the skies cleared and we had nice blues skies. We had dinner, which was practically the same as breakfast, except for potato salad and pasta salad. I ate a lot of the former, cos I like it, but can't be bothered to make it or buy a huge tub of it. Then we went out to take photos...I was dead tired, but the few remaining minutes of sunlight quasi forced me to go out now and rest later. I showered...and wrote postcards. Some of the other people went to some neighbouring party ship to dance..but from what I heard, it wasn't very good or anything. Had to pay 4 Euros...so I wouldn't have gone anyway.

The next morning, we woke up early for breakfast again...it was really really peaceful! And the sun was shining...beautiful morning! Then we took a cruise to Warnemünde, which is a "Badeort" with a beach and all. It was a nice place...there really is a holiday atmosphere over there. Though, I might mention that the prices there were slightly higher than in Rostock or Stralsund. The Bratwurst in Rostock and Stralsund cost 1 Euro, while it cost 2 Euros in Warnemünde. But I think we spent too long in the restaurant...we should've spent more time on the beach. The beach was pretty and it was a real beach, not like Sentosa...and the waters were clear...unlike East Coast. I would love to have spent more time at the beach, but we had to leave. The annoying thing was, the 2 pple in charge were LATE!! They told us to meet at 2pm and we thought we were late, but when we got there, no one was there! Bloody hell. And they were the latest to appear. We were WAITING for THEM! Sigh. And they showed this totally annoying anarchistic cartoon and played the sound so loudly that I couldn't even drown out the sound with my discman as loud as I could tahan it. I HATE this kinda irreverent, "I wanna be against every single convention there is" kinda crap. It's just rebelling for the sake of rebelling and I hate people like that. They are just trying to attract attention.

But we made it back somehow and I was super super super happy to be home and get to sleep in my own bed and have a proper toilet and shower cubicle! Still, I think I'll be happy to go back to these places again someday!

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