There are times I don't really feel like eating much...and there are days when I polish off everything in sight. The fridge is nearly empty...ate an ice cream, 2 huge containers of yoghurt, a banana, leftover mashed potato, 2 chicken thighs + skin, aglio olio pasta and whatever I had for breakfast...oh and stole bites from the egg mayo spread I made for tomorrow's breakfast. Either I haven't eaten mayo in a looooong time, or it tastes different in Germany. Anyway, I added some frozen chives...I wonder if they'll thaw in the fridge..I don't fancy biting into frozen green things and Marcus might ban me from trying to make egg mayo for the rest of my life.
Anyway, it might have to do with reading food blogs...they have such yummy photos! My food never looks like that. It tastes ok, usually, but is never so visually appealing. Also, I have this craving for bread pudding...but if I make it, I'll be eating it on my own, since Marcus doesn't eat raisins.
Or, it may have to do with eating too much garlic for lunch and I can't rid of the smell and taste. Trying to eat everything so that the smell will go away, but so far nothing has worked. SIGH.
Ok, what I actually wanted to write about was Rügen!! So, here it is:
Rügen
I was super looking forward to the Pfingstwochenende and the following holidays...cos I was so sick of school and stress. My body was screaming for a break after the presentations.
It started out pretty ok...the ride to AGM was long, as usual. I called Marcus at some stop after Berlin because I missed his call somehow...and was a bit sad that he wasn't coming along.But in Stralsund, the clouds looked extremely threatening. When we got to Rügen, there was a thunderstorm and the train was stuck for 40 minutes because there was no electricity, apparently on all of Rügen. I was extremely freaked out because I never outgrew my childhood fear of thunderstorms and strong winds. There was no reception either...but the lady in front of me managed to call...and when I asked her, she told me I had to manually dial the number...and it worked! So I called Marcus...but while telling him about it, I just started crying, cos I was so scared and stressed out...so many hours in the train and no idea when we'd get out of there and also cos of the thunderstorm. I guess it's pretty embarrassing, but I am not exactly easily embarrassed, especially if I am preoccupied with something else. Even if Marcus said big girls don't cry...even if Hoppy was in my bag.
Anyway, after 40 minutes, the train finally got moving and I called Azman to tell him about being late. Turns out Wayne was on the train too, but I only saw him when we got off. We didn't really know the way, so we called Azman...he said the building was white (all the other buildings in Rügen near the beach are white too) and had "Jugendherberge" written on it. Hahaha...he's so cute. Anyway, we found it in the end...and it was quite a nice place...
We went for dinner with the others who were there...15 in total...and we filled up a room already. Ordered aglio olio but erm, didn't know how to pronounce it. Still, the best garlic pasta ever is the one they serve at Coffee Club. I always give other people my prawns, since I don't eat them.
Anyway, after that we decided to hang out in the bistro of the DJH...it was funny cos the light kept going off, so we made it an initiation ritual for the people coming to join us to turn on the lights. People kept coming over so we had to repeat our introductions...but it was funny...now we all know that Raymond has a fungus problem in his room, and that he likes romantic walks on the beach. Haha!
After chatting for a bit, all of us went to sleep. Had to clean my feet off cos I forgot my slippers and there was a ton of sand all over the floor.
The next morning, the weather was surprisingly good. After breakfast, we went to the beach to play football, volleyball and frisbee. Shubei and I walked into the water, which was very cold...but it was so clear and pretty!
Everyone else playing volleyball
Volleyball-hater on the beach
My jeans were wet and covered in sand after that, so Shubei lent me her shorts to wear on the hike. We took a bus to Sassnitz, about 30 min away. We had free time to walk around Sassnitz while waiting for the rest to come. Went to the supermarket to get water and bought a few postcards. Most of us began to have our lunch while waiting at the bus interchange, which was our meeting point.
A bus that was well-photographed that day
We ended up walking very far to the place to get to the starting point of the hike. We actually had 2 options...to walk to Windower Klippe (I forgot what it's really called) 1.9km away and then back, or to Königsstuhl, 8.1km away and we'd take a bus back from there. We actually chose the second route, but ended up turning back because it was late...and thankfully we did...but more on that later.
The view was excellent...thanks to the weather that decided to cooperate! The chalk cliffs are magnificent!
A photo of some of the group...by the way, that's Azman's twin brother, not Azman
Anyway, some were very hungry, so we sat around and waited for them to eat. We decided to head back from there, since we were all tired and wouldn't have made it time-wise anyway. However, there was this weird twist of fate which almost drove me crazy.
We managed to catch the bus and were looking forward to getting back to the hostel. There was supposed to be AGM and a talk by our guest from Contact Singapore...but the bus was caught in a jam...and a major one at that, since it was only a 2-lane road...and no nearby detours. It turned out that there had been a major accident with many several fatalities. We were quite close to the front, so we saw some bodies covered in white cloths. Most of the cars had u-turned and gone back, but the buses couldn't, so we waited. Some people got off the bus and told the other drivers to turn back. The police had to wait for the Staatsanwaltschaft and we also saw the ambulance and Notarzt drive by. It made me think about "Staatsanwalt Posch ermittelt", my favourite TV series. It's on at 4pm on RTL. Haha...I know it's NOT real, but that doesn't make me like it less. Marcus thinks it's because I think Posch is cute. He even calls him "Poschi" or "Poschi-Posch". Well, he's not completely wrong ;) Marcus knows me too well. In any case, it seemed a bit too real at that point. Anyway, Posch is a real lawyer with a firm in Kassel...interesting.
After another prolonged period of waiting, I felt like I was going to scream and run away...but we were in the middle of nowhere, so what to do? Wanted to call Marcus, but it would've been weird to talk about all this crap on the phone in front of so many people.
But we managed to get out of there and took an extremely extremely long detour via Lietzow and Bergen to get back to Binz. We were a bit freaked out by the fast driving of the bus driver, considering an accident had just happened...but I guess he was trying to get all of us there as fast as possible, considering the long delay.
We had to call to hold our reservation at the Rasender Roland restaurant, which was quite a long walk away. The atmosphere was nice, but seriously, the turkey curry was full of extremely dry turkey and the rice was too mushy and wet...and thankfully Marcus wasn't there because he'd have died trying to take all the peas out of the rice. I called him after dinner to tell him that. Haha.
When we got back, we had the short talk and some played SingStar on Gunardi's Playstation. After that, we were all dead tired too and I slept very well.
The next day, the weather didn't look too great. But we still headed to Göhren on the Rasender Roland, a steam train (yes, we walked the long way to the train station again)
When we got to Göhren, we walked to the beach and saw the FKK sign...well, it was too cold for such a thing anyway.
After taking a few photos, it started to rain and get cold
Me and Xizhen
Seebrücke
Crazy waves
The sea was choppy and many people got seasick...and we didn't see much of the scenery
Right at the beginning of the cruise (before everyone got sick)
Misty day
Mini Lighthouse
Some people got off at Binz before the boat continued to Sassnitz and Königsstuhl. I felt quite bad for the people who got seasick because it's like an amusement ride you can't get off. I was really glad I didn't feel sick at all, until I ate the extremely heaty chocolate on the bottom of the Cornetto cone. Mel, Yucheng and I all got the Cornetto. In fact, by my turn, the guy took one look at me and asked, "Cornetto?" Hahaha.
When we got back, we finally had AGM. In contrast to previous years, everything went quickly and there weren't too many issues. The previous committee has done a great job, so there wasn't that many improvements or controversial issues to be discussed, nor was it very political, thankfully. I think this was one point that was personally very important to me, because it would be a real pity if SSAG became too political. I just hope the committee for 07-08 can work together well and do our best to achieve what we set out to do, despite Lee Ting being far away in Shanghai and me having to go back to Singapore in July. But I'm sure Shubei and Xizhen will do a great job of holding the fort while we're away :)
Anyway, we then had a barbecue...the meat tasted like liver...so I ate half a sausage and lots of potato salad. Ate a lot that day anyway. After that, we tried to play charades but some guy came and complained we were making too much noise...and it wasn't even 9pm...but he had kids and we're considerate people, so we decided to go into town instead...which wasn't very far. We ended up having ice cream...and I couldn't finish it, cos it was soooo big...and I made the mistake of getting 2 fruit ice creams, which were too sweet together. But still, it was worth the money. Then I kinda wanted to go back and sleep 'cos I was DEAD tired...but the rest convinced me to go out for a drink with them...and since our group didn't go so far, I was happy to do so. But knowing I was dead tired and still drinking alcohol was a mistake. I always immediately feel sleepy after drinking...and being already tired really just magnified everything, so I had to put my head on the table. At some point, Raymond kept knocking my elbow with his head, but I was too tired to tell him to move away. Haha. So I had a really really good sleep after that.
Then, before we knew it, the weekend was over and we had to go back. Quite a few of us took the same train, so we chatted the whole time. Siwei told us about an incident where some crazy dude tried to rob him of his phone at 7am...and consequently fell down the stairs...and tried to hide behind some dustbins.
At Berlin, we split up and Guojun and I arranged to meet Raymond in Leipzig that night. Guojun and I headed to Dresden to pick up my stuff and we had a Dresden tour im Schnelldurchlauf (fast-forward) and I promised to show him Dresden again if he came to visit. There was thunder and lightning, which really freaked me out, so I quickly grabbed my stuff and we headed to the Hauptbahnhof. Had dinner at Asia-Snack..but the food took quite long to come, so I called Marcus and told him we'd be an hour later. After all, Raymond would only reach Leipzig at 10pm anyway. I was really craving Asian food anyway...and it was soooo good for a change!
By the time we got to Leipzig, there was thankfully no thunderstorm, but it was raining. Thankfully Marcus has a car! We drove to the Innenstadt and went into Spizz. Had another alcoholic drink. Actually, I only drink 2 things...either a Tequila Sunrise or Sex on the Beach...other than that, there's not much I like. Guojun and I had a lot of fun trying to translate what Raymond said for Marcus and what Marcus said for Raymond...I must say I'm glad Guojun was there. Being the only translator might have killed me. But we really had a good time and we are trying to find Raymond his dream girl...which will probably be quite tough. Marcus was the only one who didn't drink...cos he had to drive. And well, I might've drunk too much (Raymond actually finished my drink for me the previous day...heh) cos I was getting a bit too touchy-feely in the bar. But I had a good time :) Been a while since I hung out till late at night.
I was glad to be back in Leipzig anyway...I kinda missed Marcus' couch and all our toys (Marcus always puts them on my side of the couch)..and I was looking forward to some peace and quiet for a week.
I had this insect bite on my leg and I had no idea what it was until Marcus said it might be a Zeckenstich (I think it's a mite) and we decided we had to go to the doctor's cos there might be an infection. But the doctors were somehow all closed, so we had to go back on Thursday morning...and wait for more than 2 hours to see the doctor. She took a blood sample and I have to call her on Monday. But man, I was gonna scream by the time I finally got my turn. My back and neck were aching and I was restless like hell. Sigh. And poor Marcus had to spend his free time sitting at the doctor's with me. Once we got back, we had to have lunch and he had to go to work. He's been working the afternoon shift these 2 days and will be working the night shift next week...poor boy. And I've been eating to pass time..ugh.
Anyway, it might have to do with reading food blogs...they have such yummy photos! My food never looks like that. It tastes ok, usually, but is never so visually appealing. Also, I have this craving for bread pudding...but if I make it, I'll be eating it on my own, since Marcus doesn't eat raisins.
Or, it may have to do with eating too much garlic for lunch and I can't rid of the smell and taste. Trying to eat everything so that the smell will go away, but so far nothing has worked. SIGH.
Ok, what I actually wanted to write about was Rügen!! So, here it is:
Rügen
I was super looking forward to the Pfingstwochenende and the following holidays...cos I was so sick of school and stress. My body was screaming for a break after the presentations.
It started out pretty ok...the ride to AGM was long, as usual. I called Marcus at some stop after Berlin because I missed his call somehow...and was a bit sad that he wasn't coming along.But in Stralsund, the clouds looked extremely threatening. When we got to Rügen, there was a thunderstorm and the train was stuck for 40 minutes because there was no electricity, apparently on all of Rügen. I was extremely freaked out because I never outgrew my childhood fear of thunderstorms and strong winds. There was no reception either...but the lady in front of me managed to call...and when I asked her, she told me I had to manually dial the number...and it worked! So I called Marcus...but while telling him about it, I just started crying, cos I was so scared and stressed out...so many hours in the train and no idea when we'd get out of there and also cos of the thunderstorm. I guess it's pretty embarrassing, but I am not exactly easily embarrassed, especially if I am preoccupied with something else. Even if Marcus said big girls don't cry...even if Hoppy was in my bag.
Anyway, after 40 minutes, the train finally got moving and I called Azman to tell him about being late. Turns out Wayne was on the train too, but I only saw him when we got off. We didn't really know the way, so we called Azman...he said the building was white (all the other buildings in Rügen near the beach are white too) and had "Jugendherberge" written on it. Hahaha...he's so cute. Anyway, we found it in the end...and it was quite a nice place...
We went for dinner with the others who were there...15 in total...and we filled up a room already. Ordered aglio olio but erm, didn't know how to pronounce it. Still, the best garlic pasta ever is the one they serve at Coffee Club. I always give other people my prawns, since I don't eat them.
Anyway, after that we decided to hang out in the bistro of the DJH...it was funny cos the light kept going off, so we made it an initiation ritual for the people coming to join us to turn on the lights. People kept coming over so we had to repeat our introductions...but it was funny...now we all know that Raymond has a fungus problem in his room, and that he likes romantic walks on the beach. Haha!
After chatting for a bit, all of us went to sleep. Had to clean my feet off cos I forgot my slippers and there was a ton of sand all over the floor.
The next morning, the weather was surprisingly good. After breakfast, we went to the beach to play football, volleyball and frisbee. Shubei and I walked into the water, which was very cold...but it was so clear and pretty!
Everyone else playing volleyball
Volleyball-hater on the beach
My jeans were wet and covered in sand after that, so Shubei lent me her shorts to wear on the hike. We took a bus to Sassnitz, about 30 min away. We had free time to walk around Sassnitz while waiting for the rest to come. Went to the supermarket to get water and bought a few postcards. Most of us began to have our lunch while waiting at the bus interchange, which was our meeting point.
A bus that was well-photographed that day
We ended up walking very far to the place to get to the starting point of the hike. We actually had 2 options...to walk to Windower Klippe (I forgot what it's really called) 1.9km away and then back, or to Königsstuhl, 8.1km away and we'd take a bus back from there. We actually chose the second route, but ended up turning back because it was late...and thankfully we did...but more on that later.
The view was excellent...thanks to the weather that decided to cooperate! The chalk cliffs are magnificent!
A photo of some of the group...by the way, that's Azman's twin brother, not Azman
Anyway, some were very hungry, so we sat around and waited for them to eat. We decided to head back from there, since we were all tired and wouldn't have made it time-wise anyway. However, there was this weird twist of fate which almost drove me crazy.
We managed to catch the bus and were looking forward to getting back to the hostel. There was supposed to be AGM and a talk by our guest from Contact Singapore...but the bus was caught in a jam...and a major one at that, since it was only a 2-lane road...and no nearby detours. It turned out that there had been a major accident with many several fatalities. We were quite close to the front, so we saw some bodies covered in white cloths. Most of the cars had u-turned and gone back, but the buses couldn't, so we waited. Some people got off the bus and told the other drivers to turn back. The police had to wait for the Staatsanwaltschaft and we also saw the ambulance and Notarzt drive by. It made me think about "Staatsanwalt Posch ermittelt", my favourite TV series. It's on at 4pm on RTL. Haha...I know it's NOT real, but that doesn't make me like it less. Marcus thinks it's because I think Posch is cute. He even calls him "Poschi" or "Poschi-Posch". Well, he's not completely wrong ;) Marcus knows me too well. In any case, it seemed a bit too real at that point. Anyway, Posch is a real lawyer with a firm in Kassel...interesting.
After another prolonged period of waiting, I felt like I was going to scream and run away...but we were in the middle of nowhere, so what to do? Wanted to call Marcus, but it would've been weird to talk about all this crap on the phone in front of so many people.
But we managed to get out of there and took an extremely extremely long detour via Lietzow and Bergen to get back to Binz. We were a bit freaked out by the fast driving of the bus driver, considering an accident had just happened...but I guess he was trying to get all of us there as fast as possible, considering the long delay.
We had to call to hold our reservation at the Rasender Roland restaurant, which was quite a long walk away. The atmosphere was nice, but seriously, the turkey curry was full of extremely dry turkey and the rice was too mushy and wet...and thankfully Marcus wasn't there because he'd have died trying to take all the peas out of the rice. I called him after dinner to tell him that. Haha.
When we got back, we had the short talk and some played SingStar on Gunardi's Playstation. After that, we were all dead tired too and I slept very well.
The next day, the weather didn't look too great. But we still headed to Göhren on the Rasender Roland, a steam train (yes, we walked the long way to the train station again)
When we got to Göhren, we walked to the beach and saw the FKK sign...well, it was too cold for such a thing anyway.
After taking a few photos, it started to rain and get cold
Me and Xizhen
Seebrücke
Crazy waves
The sea was choppy and many people got seasick...and we didn't see much of the scenery
Right at the beginning of the cruise (before everyone got sick)
Misty day
Mini Lighthouse
Some people got off at Binz before the boat continued to Sassnitz and Königsstuhl. I felt quite bad for the people who got seasick because it's like an amusement ride you can't get off. I was really glad I didn't feel sick at all, until I ate the extremely heaty chocolate on the bottom of the Cornetto cone. Mel, Yucheng and I all got the Cornetto. In fact, by my turn, the guy took one look at me and asked, "Cornetto?" Hahaha.
When we got back, we finally had AGM. In contrast to previous years, everything went quickly and there weren't too many issues. The previous committee has done a great job, so there wasn't that many improvements or controversial issues to be discussed, nor was it very political, thankfully. I think this was one point that was personally very important to me, because it would be a real pity if SSAG became too political. I just hope the committee for 07-08 can work together well and do our best to achieve what we set out to do, despite Lee Ting being far away in Shanghai and me having to go back to Singapore in July. But I'm sure Shubei and Xizhen will do a great job of holding the fort while we're away :)
Anyway, we then had a barbecue...the meat tasted like liver...so I ate half a sausage and lots of potato salad. Ate a lot that day anyway. After that, we tried to play charades but some guy came and complained we were making too much noise...and it wasn't even 9pm...but he had kids and we're considerate people, so we decided to go into town instead...which wasn't very far. We ended up having ice cream...and I couldn't finish it, cos it was soooo big...and I made the mistake of getting 2 fruit ice creams, which were too sweet together. But still, it was worth the money. Then I kinda wanted to go back and sleep 'cos I was DEAD tired...but the rest convinced me to go out for a drink with them...and since our group didn't go so far, I was happy to do so. But knowing I was dead tired and still drinking alcohol was a mistake. I always immediately feel sleepy after drinking...and being already tired really just magnified everything, so I had to put my head on the table. At some point, Raymond kept knocking my elbow with his head, but I was too tired to tell him to move away. Haha. So I had a really really good sleep after that.
Then, before we knew it, the weekend was over and we had to go back. Quite a few of us took the same train, so we chatted the whole time. Siwei told us about an incident where some crazy dude tried to rob him of his phone at 7am...and consequently fell down the stairs...and tried to hide behind some dustbins.
At Berlin, we split up and Guojun and I arranged to meet Raymond in Leipzig that night. Guojun and I headed to Dresden to pick up my stuff and we had a Dresden tour im Schnelldurchlauf (fast-forward) and I promised to show him Dresden again if he came to visit. There was thunder and lightning, which really freaked me out, so I quickly grabbed my stuff and we headed to the Hauptbahnhof. Had dinner at Asia-Snack..but the food took quite long to come, so I called Marcus and told him we'd be an hour later. After all, Raymond would only reach Leipzig at 10pm anyway. I was really craving Asian food anyway...and it was soooo good for a change!
By the time we got to Leipzig, there was thankfully no thunderstorm, but it was raining. Thankfully Marcus has a car! We drove to the Innenstadt and went into Spizz. Had another alcoholic drink. Actually, I only drink 2 things...either a Tequila Sunrise or Sex on the Beach...other than that, there's not much I like. Guojun and I had a lot of fun trying to translate what Raymond said for Marcus and what Marcus said for Raymond...I must say I'm glad Guojun was there. Being the only translator might have killed me. But we really had a good time and we are trying to find Raymond his dream girl...which will probably be quite tough. Marcus was the only one who didn't drink...cos he had to drive. And well, I might've drunk too much (Raymond actually finished my drink for me the previous day...heh) cos I was getting a bit too touchy-feely in the bar. But I had a good time :) Been a while since I hung out till late at night.
I was glad to be back in Leipzig anyway...I kinda missed Marcus' couch and all our toys (Marcus always puts them on my side of the couch)..and I was looking forward to some peace and quiet for a week.
I had this insect bite on my leg and I had no idea what it was until Marcus said it might be a Zeckenstich (I think it's a mite) and we decided we had to go to the doctor's cos there might be an infection. But the doctors were somehow all closed, so we had to go back on Thursday morning...and wait for more than 2 hours to see the doctor. She took a blood sample and I have to call her on Monday. But man, I was gonna scream by the time I finally got my turn. My back and neck were aching and I was restless like hell. Sigh. And poor Marcus had to spend his free time sitting at the doctor's with me. Once we got back, we had to have lunch and he had to go to work. He's been working the afternoon shift these 2 days and will be working the night shift next week...poor boy. And I've been eating to pass time..ugh.
posted by Samantha @ 9:44 pm
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