Europe

Nice!!!

2007-11-11T01:17:00.000+08:00

we had to leave Marseilles about 5pm to catch a train to Nice! we arrived in Nice about 7+ later in that evening, we passed through the world famous cannes!

day 1:

first attraction in Nice, Marc Chagall museum, it is worth a visit (if you are a little bit into paintings like me), even if you dont know who he is or wat he did...

they had special displays of his work, for a limited time, it happened to visit it during this period of time!

many interesting paintings! but this one was special for me....

the Russian church was quite interesting, looking like a mosque
Croissantsfrom Carrefour

day 2:

cannes, the film festival place

streets were full of hotels..... afterall , its for the rich and famous

they controlled most part of the beaches...

Marseille

2007-11-10T21:04:00.001+08:00

firstly sorry for the really loooong break. I always knew that this would happen when I start a blog, because blogging was never my kind of thing. Given the importance of things that has happened here in sweden, I didnt feel the need to write a blog. But as the closing stage of this phase of life nears, I feel the need to document my memories of this stay in europe, much of which will stay with me forever.

For now we switch to start from where we left off!

Train from Barca to Marseille:
Our train from barca started at 8.10, which meant we had to leave really early from our hostel. Waking up early has never been easy, it wasn't on that day either. The previous night they had a 'shots' party in bar nearby, so everyone cameback really late, but thankfully no one woke us up....

We showed some courtesy in the morning by not disturbing any of them. well the train ride was pretty scenic for the most part! It was raining sometimes, but that didn't do enough to stop me from enjoying the scenic ride. We had to switch trains at Montpelier, then another 1hr30mins, we finally arrived in Marseilles in the evening.

The streets of Marseilles was pretty cool with blue lightings from the buildings. Surprisingly more people spoke in english and were quite helpful.

We walked around the town area, finding quite a number of interesting sites, then we came across this restaurant on the ship, or rather a ship that was a restaurant. It looked pretty impressive and was really glowing with lights.

If you travel with a girlfriend, this would be a perfect place for a romantic dinner by the "busiest port of France", but since I did not and was not traveling with one, I decided to stop with a picture

The Fort of Marseille in the night light, again blue lights.

By the time we reached the fort we were really exhausted, i wanted to continue on a little bit more to see what was in the Fort, but Ben was totally gone, so we went back to hotel to sleep!

Day 2

In the morning, we bought croissant and some orange juice from the supermarket nearby. We checked out from the hotel in the morning at about 9, but they had offered baggage storage for us. Thanks to this we could walk around again without carrying our baggages.

I really understood, why Marseilles was called "the port of France"

Notre-Dame church in Marseilles
We wanted to check it out, but it was on top of a hill, after Barcelona adventures, ben didn't want to do it again. For me the sun was really up and shining so I skipped it as well.

The park in Marseilles, with the university

I wished NTU (my university in Singapore) had such a place. It would be perfect, despite the fact Margit mentioning that "sunny Singapore has become rainy Singapore" in the last couple of months.

View of port, the ocean, and the university from the park

I really savored these moments, this is one place I would comeback just to sit in the park!

Trams were pretty cool too!!! check out the video

it was suprisingly good looking for trams, futuristic and shiny!! there was no checking of tickets of any sorts. Once again in europe matter of trust comes into play. I had to think of what will happen if there was a similar scenario in Singapore MRT system. To me, most definitely this would result in a disaster for SMRT and they'll go bankrupt in a few days.

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Now playing: Bon Jovi - Keep The Faith

barca day 2,3,4

2007-08-18T06:32:00.000+08:00

Day 2!

blast, 4 different choice cereals, orange juice, bread with jam, coffee/tea, yoghurt!

all this in buffet style for breakfast at 'Centric Point Hostel'! so if u ever go to barcelona, this would be best hostel to stay in!

and yea, as it would be expected some people did make this, their breakfast/lunch/dinner for the day..... :-(

picasso museum has first place on the list of disappointments in barcelona.

being only a fan of google's picassa web, I couldnt appreciate his work much!

but mayb and juz mayb if you are fan of picasso, then you should consider a visit to this museuem which has looong queues!

and if you do visit, please check the rooms 7 & 8, for the painting that is worth the most of your buckz!

after the disappointment of barcelona, we went seperate ways, ben went to walk around shopping district, doug was in the beach, and I was somewhere else...

while on the metro, I noticed something really weird! have you spotted it already???

I believe it was made fun of already, if you still havent got it, answer is there at the end of this post

we met again at like 6pm in the evening, with the sun expected to shine till 9.30pm plus, we decided to visit a church which was visible from our hostel, but we never knew where it was.... (only that it was on top of a mountain).

In the picture, it is barely visible at the backdrop, click on it to see the hi-res version or here

I did make some videos on the way up, overall it was like a roller coaster of a ride, videos later..

we thought we were already there, but as we found out, we were not even half way through!

the picture was at about half-way point

then we reached a theme park, thought it was it!
but then realised it was which, the church was part of....

i have to say i felt a sense of achievement climbing the mountain,
after we finally reached the church!!
and below the church itself.... (and the power of the wide angle lens)

the view of the city from that church towards the city is below

then we had some difficulty finding our way back to the city...

but we did make it, and did find a really nice buffet restaurant, it had free flow of everything from pizza to pasta, salads and soft drinks...

really nice treat for the hardwork of climbing the mountain

end of day 2, more updates soon!

btw the answer to the weird thing on the picture! we all went like 'Whats with the 5 cents?'

barcelona the city of unpredictable weather day1

2007-08-07T00:30:00.000+08:00

well, I made it to the city of barcelona after a nights stay in ´girona´ airport.

It wasnt a great airport to spend the night, but it was atleast trouble free and there was always the airport security to keep watch on everything. took the first bus in the morning to get to the city, it was 45mins or so ride into the city! once the airport ´girona´ is in the middle of nowhere, and is monopolised by the budget carrier RYANAIR (pls dont ask about the flight)

in barcelona our first hostel was really great! centricpoint, right in the heart of the city center!
we met this aussie called who doug, he was travelling alone, and he joined us for the next two days as we explored the barcelona city!

our first visit was to sagrida familia, the unfinished church for 125years, it is the master piece of gaudi, who I guess you've probably never heard before...
It was the same for me, until I visited barca!
anyways coming back to the familia, its only funded the entry tickets from the tourist and the occasional donations and stuff, it is estimated to be finished in the next 19 years (2026)

enjoy it, its good!
more pictures here

after that we were on our way to the picasso musuem (which by the way was crap), we ended up in the bull fighting ring in barca!
it was my first time in such a place, the bull fights were scheduled on the 9th august, by which we were already in france....
so we decided to visit the place despite the fact that it was empty..

there was nevertheless a bull fight among the three of us, catch the video below

the bull ring was so fun that we forgot about picasso musuem!

we cameback slept a while, then we went to catch the musical fountain at plaza catalunya, it was a really looooong walk to get there but the site was more than worth it..
(btw we have been walking all along)
the musical fountain, similar in many aspects to the one in sentosa, but much bigger in scale and best of all it was free!

i caught a video of it, well not all of it...

thats the three of us, really had a gr8 time in barca (day1)!

in stockholm

2007-07-31T16:59:00.000+08:00

well well..

10hrs of flight was boring, but it was worth the wait, coz finally here I'm in Stockholm..
airport was very different from singapore, its in the middle of no where, we had to take a high speed train to get to the city center

from the airport it was nice train ride to city center
in the arlanda express, which had a top speed of 205km/h (catch the video below),
but i didnt feel a thing! simply great!

Weather is awesome, people are really nice, helpful and most of all, they can speak english! we took a nice walk from the city center to the hostel we booked! gotta get outta stockholm tmrw really early so that we can make it to our university on time!

stay tuned for more!

the D-day

2007-07-30T00:41:00.001+08:00

hello!

today is the DAY, first time ever i'm off to europe! All alone, well without any really close friends or family members

trips are all planned for the next 2weeks, hostels booked, so are the flights! keep you guys posted on whats going on..
Sweden --> Barcelona --> marseille --> nice --> paris --> copenhagen --> sweden

do leave your comments, if u will!

else where vanessa hudgens is famous today, she is quite a looker thou