Saturday, August 11, 2007
i wanted to write about my trip to europe but then it is gonna be a very longgg post if i write about what i did each and everyday...
let me just share with u guys some interesting things i noticed there...
switzerland
the train and bus are VERY punctual. the train leaves the station on the dot. all bus stops have a schedule of the bus departing timings and you can really rely on it.. thats a gd thing when you want to have a daily routine. but a bad thing when you overslept, coz you know you will definitely miss the bus for sure. for me, i live in a so called village and every morning i have to walk 10minutes to the bus stop, some of my friends live even further away from bus stop, some had to cut cross some field, greet some cows. and yea, sometimes my neighbours would say 'bonjour' to me or just smile... other than being known for punctuality, you can always take a free ride but nobody does that. everyone just hop on the bus and the bus conductor doesn't check whether you bought a ticket or not, they just trust that you did buy one from the bus stop before boarding. and yes, ppl do buy their bus tix.
you can truly experience the difference in different parts of switzerland. for example, in zuerich, all the people and printed advertisements are in german but in geneva, ppl and words are in french! you just have to adapt and switch so quickly when travelling within switzerland... yup, i learnt a few words of french of course. haha..
france
in paris, they have public toilet everywhere, but you must pay to use it. drop in the coin then the door would be open. i think its either 20cts or 50cts in euro. times 2 gives you SGD. but i never pay because i would go look for free toilet, say in museum or macdonalds no matter how far it is.
they sell crepes everywhere. that makes me a happy girl!
baguette there is cheap n good. sgd$1 for 3/4 metre baguette. and it lasted as 3 meals for me =)
spain
madrid is exceptionally very hot n dry. the temperature can easily shoot up to 38deg cel, very much unbearable....
spain zara is cheaper than other countries ;)
italy
Gelati store can be seen anywhere! ur crave for ice cream can be satisfied in less than 5minutes when you just thought of having one... and usually they give you very big n messy scope of ice cream over a small cone. just have to clear off everything before it starts melting n dripping...
all pizza are thin crust here and its not as cheesy as what we have in sg..
u know ur fav carbonara spaghetti? in italy, its not a white creamy sauce! its more of cheese topping with bacon strips, but very tasty. and their pasta servings are usually quite small, about half what we got here in singapore. do you know why?
because italian meals comes in 2 parts, first course is usually pasta den main course would be steak or escalope kind.
how did i know so much abt italian food? because towards the end, we were having dinner at cheap restaurant every night, trying out different pizza n pasta. wahahhahaha. we always joke about ourselves that we are not backpacking but more of having holiday.. coz backpackers are suppose to just survive on bread n water...
nevertheless, i skipped lunch usually to have more money for nice proper formal dinner.
i truly enjoy my immersion programme and backpacking experience. join me for the next trip! haha..
munched @ 1:41 PM
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