Talk to the wind

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

The French Episode

Just when I thought Internet doesn't exist in Southern France, Perpignan proves me wrong! Good small ol' Perpignan, not like disappointing major city Lyon and tourist sucker town Avignon. Oh the irony

So in 2 days I will end my stay in France (Southern France, to be precise) and head for more sunshine in Spain. I've been in Lyon and Avignon and just today, arrived in Perpignan.

And I haven't blogged and journaled anything along the way at all. Believe me, my eyes were peeled for Internet cafes, but all naught. So France, in a nutshell..

Ranting
This is a well-known fact. The French are arrogant pomps and there are no two ways about it. Unlike the Swiss or Germans I've met so far, who try their best to converse in English with visitors like me, the French will do nothing of the sort. It is French or nothing for most of them, even the shopkeepers and vendors who in my opinion, are the ones who should be trying to speak to earn a living from us tourists not adept in French. I mean, come on! This is MY 5 Euro note you are trying to earn, so quit the Oui Oui Oui crap with me. After five entire minutes of trying to converse in sign language and head-shaking, they finally let on that they know SOME english. Oohlala, sparkling wine is still champagne all the same, you aristocratic tarts.

The Gentler side
Aside from the native pomps I've just cleared the above case with, there is a very different side in most French towns. This was something I saw when we went to Marseille last week. It was a day of sign language and pretended incomprehendo, UNTIL we stepped into the Middle-Eastern part of the town. It was a riot of people and sweaty bodies brushing past one another in haste, rotting fruit smashed into the crevices of the stone walkways, yells and whoops in the air.. But believe me, THAT was the one part of France I really liked and appreciated. The people there are mostly immigrants, not native French.

There was so much camaraderie and bustle amongst everyone. And though we were like aliens trying to walk through the street, they helped make us feel so at home.

I was trying to buy a small loaf of wheat bread from a boulangerie run by a morrocan family, and I had no small change, just a 20 Euro note. Guess what the owner did? he gave me a smile and a wink and told me in broken english that it was on the house, and wished me a good weekend too. I was shell-shocked. He didn't have to do that for me. And if you're thinking it was some perverted haha gesture, let's just say I know the difference. And he was acting fatherly, being kind. I was really touched.

Weiming encountered something like that too. He bought paella rice to eat with his grilled chicken from this shop that was bursting with greasy fumes and cracked windows. They had no spoon to offer him, so the lady sent one of her relarives to run to another shop about 100m down the street to get him one. He returned with a simple plastic spoon, which Meng used to enjoy the best French meal he has had to date. Made even more so with the kindness and warmth behind it. Subsequent similar cases in Avignon saw him having to return to the hotel room to eat just because the town store owner wouldn't offer him utensils.

Oui/Non
Our stay in France was well-timed, because there is so much going on here in the political arena. The president, Jaques Chirac offered his people the chance to vote for the acceptance of the EU constitution, instead of deciding for them in a parliamentary vote. But they have turned their backs on him, with 55 percent voting against the constitution.

So now France and Chirac's government are in real sticky situations. France, being one of the EU's founding and most important members, has made the compulsory full member acceptance unattainable, viewed as a menace by its fellow EU countries. Chirac has to follow the wishes of his people, and at the same time account to the EU for this failure to get acceptance for the new constitution. If I were him, I'd be very very worried indeed. His people seem determined to remove him and the ineffective movements he has spearheaded or become associated with. I think most of the Non voters voted this way in defiance of the existing French government, not the EU constitution per se. Bet most of the people don't even know what is going on within the 200 pages of the consitution.

There are so many Oui-Non posters all around, and CNN is covering this story around the clock. It is all very exciting to be here while all this is going on. You don't see this much freedom being given back home, and it's not everyday something big like this happens.

--
So this ends my French episode, au revoir for now!

Laid bare at 11:30 pm
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Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Our last day in Switzerland

My last day in Switzerland... :( I'm feeling a little sad about leaving because this is the place I've been in, and that I've called home for the past month and a half. It's been wonderful.

I'm in Geneva now, for the second time. (the first was with the rest of the class during the course) We were in Lausanne for the first half of the day, and yesterday as well. I will just recap what we did there.

Lausanne
We arrived tired and grouchy to the best guesthouse I have ever seen thus far! The Lausanne Guesthouse and Backpacker's is by far, the BEST backpacker's inn I have ever stayed in. Ok, that's not exactly a valid statement, cos I haven't stayed in many budget hotels at all.. I didn't intend to slander my Zurich accomodation, but the Lausanne one just makes it necessary to do so! This was everything Hotel Biber in Zurich wasn't! It was clean (I am absolutely anal about clean floors), had a good view, wasn't noisy with drunk people returning back at ungodly hours, was a non-smoking hotel, and it was just beautiful. :)

So that put me in a happy mood, and I wasn't little miss grouchy anymore. We met TJ and went to the Le Musee Olympique. It was awesome. I didn't even know Lausanne was the offical olympic city, and that all of the IOC offices and establishments were based here. The museum was good, I learnt quite a bit about Olympic history and facts. Used to be crazy over the Olympics when I was in secondary school. I followed the Sydney 2000 Olympics like a bee to honey, and I even skipped school for that! It was great to see names like Marion Jones, Pieter van den Hoogenband, Ian Thorpe, Cathy Freeman, Alexander Popov, and Inger de Buijin pop up once more in the museum. It reminded me of the days I used to go nuts over them with my fellow Olympic crazy friends Jan and Shan. :)

And being the Singaporean I am, I thoroughly flouted the No-photos rule. I felt like a spy carrying my little Canon and snooping around taking pictures flashless. I got pictures of so many of the memorabilia. Like the pair of Adidas shoes worn when the first sub-10 100m race was ran, the 'Boycott Moscow' propagandic posters, the beams and leotards used by gymnasts, all signed by the atheletes themselves. :) Haha

Earlier today we went to the Museum L'Art Brut. Which is a gallery that displays art pieces that have no artistic inclination, and are not bound by knowledge or art trends. Most of the artists were socially inept people, psychiatric patients, spiritual mediums, convicts, the unemployed and lonely.. The art pieces were very haunting, and sometimes I felt like the Intro Psych course I took last sem creep up again. Schizophrenia, multi-personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder... Shudder.. There were some pieces of art done by this man who was psychotic, and I guessed that he was probably schizo cos all his paintings had clusters of things and people huddled closed together, with many eyes and disjointed parts cramped in a single space. It was almost as if he was drawing out the voices and hallucinations he was experiencing. Very haunting, very honest. (and again I flouted the No-picture rule.. )

Geneva
We arrived in Geneva today in the late afternoon. Walked around town for a bit, and then we headed for dinner at Boky's. It's a very affordable Chinese/Japanese restaurant. We had fried rice and tofu with minced pork and thick sauce. It was fantastic. Then we finished the meal with Movenpick ice-cream and I scoffed down a raisin danish and another sugar pastry. Ugh, sin. Sin to my pocket, and sin to my tummy. :(

Walked along Lake Geneva after dinner. That was something we didn't get to do the last time we were here because it was all too hurried. It is truly beautiful at night. There is something distinctly Swiss about the whole atmosphere. Maybe it's the antiquated architecture, maybe it's the cobbled lanes, maybe it's the people eating al'fresco by the water, maybe it's the lake spray that marks out the centre of the water body. Maybe it's just the feeling I got because it's our last day in Switzerland.

Laid bare at 11:23 pm
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Sunday, May 22, 2005

Our seventh month day in Zurich

Arrived in Zurich on Friday morning. And I was greeted with the oh-so-familiar 'Ni2 Hao3!'.. Uncle Carlo! I haven't seen him in 4 years! I remember he used to bring us each a bag of 1kg Toblerone chocolates everytime he visited us in Singapore. It's nice to meet him again in his own country for the first time. :)

He drove us to the Hotel Biber, our (very humble) backpacker's abode for the next 3 nights. We had to share a dorm for the first night with 2 other people cos there were no more available rooms. It was so squeezy it felt just like those railway cabins in China. Thank God we roomed with 2 GIRLS from Brazil, and not 2 big noisy American GUYS. They would probably come back drunk at 4am, and make the room stink with booze and cigarette smoke. Ughhh.. I'm not exaggerating, the people we saw at the reception room really did all that.

Shopped at Bahnhofstrasse and Paradeplatz for the rest of Friday. Those are the equivalents of Orchard Road here. For all the scrimping and saving I've done so far, I was like a tiger let loose on Main Street. Got a top from H&M, a tank top from the basement of Manor, and a tee from Benetton. It says 'United Colours of Benetton Zurich'. My best souveneir of the place. :) Heehee

Saturday brunch was at Sprüngli's with Uncle Carlo, Aunt Marion and their older son Marco. For the clueless (I was too), Sprüngli is a bakery-confisserie famous for its chocolates, macaroons and sweet nothings. The price matches the quality of the food there. The hot chocolate there is TO DIE FOR. Uncle Carlo wouldn't hear of me settling for steamed milk or Ovalmoltine. It was that or nothing. And it beats the Suckao at Max Brenner's hands down. The Sprüngli hot chocolate tasted like a liquid chocolate bar. The brown velvet was magic on our tongues, and I can't find any other way to describe it. It's just amazing. Weiming had 2 small pastries, one with a caramelized sugar crust, and the other with a pure chocolate molten center. Our waistlines sinned, and so did Uncle Carlo's pockets. We liked it so much we went back this morning for breakie again. I had the cold chocolate this time, and it was just amazing. Ahhhhh. Ditto for the warm brioche and quiche I had. I'm a sucker for good food.

Uncle Carlo is really a god-send! He drove us around the whole city on Saturday after our maiden Sprüngli adventure, and we got to see the city in his C320 Benz, which can't be found in Singapore. Meng liked it so much he posed for a picture with Uncle Carlo in front of the car. Haha

Sundays in Switzerland are always lifeless. So that's how we spent today... Being lifeless :( We went to the local Landesmuseum. Which was kinda boring cos there was alot to see, but everything was so overwhelming and disjointed that it didn't leave me with any inkling of the history of Zurich and Swiss traditions at all. Just a lot of regal and important looking things.

There was a whole set-up at the Bahnhof station, that showed the Montecarlo Grand Prix live. There was a stage, a huge screen showing the live race, and Credit Suisse sponsored games and stalls at the side. The coolest one has got to be this pitstop game, where guys race to beat the clock in changing tires on a race car. And there are race girls strutting their stuff around, and people get to watch all this for free. Very cool.

So now I'm racing against time in an Internet cafe to journal all this down. My CHF3 investment better be worthwhile! Tomorrow we're leaving for Lausanne, so I don't know when I'll get to journal all this down again... Til the next time, this is Celest over and out!

Our seventh month. Though nonchalant, though it passed in a moment of a slap on the forehead, it was never forgotten. Zurich probably became Paris for a day.

Laid bare at 5:12 pm
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Thursday, May 19, 2005

Of Gruezis and Goodbyes

It's my last day in St. Gallen. I'll be going to Zurich tomorrow morning.

These two days, doing anything here has been weighed down by the thought of having to leave something behind. The daily routine I have etched out for myself, and become so used to, is going to be a thing of the past tomorrow. :(

Downing yogurt for breakfast. Watching Weiming struggle with his cornflakes cos he dawdled too much. Hui Kie leaving food for the rest of us bums to heat up. Running like mad dogs after Bus 9. Missing it and having to walk to the Bahnhof to take Bus 5. Furious writing in class. Taking extended breaks. Hot cross buns and apples for lunch. C&A, Orsay, Chicoree, Le Park, Clockhouse, H&M and all the clothes I can't buy. Rationing internet time. Locking the doors before going to sleep. Struggling with dirty clothes and a lack of hangers. Hui Kie in command at the stove, me cutting food, Kenneth complaining of hunger, Ben offering booze, and Wei Ming the washerboy. Chionging out of school to meet the 630pm supermarket closing times.

All these simple things are things I have become so accustomed to. When I wake up, I reach for the Estee Lauder moisturizer and lip balm even before I step out of the room. It's not something I'd do in oh-shit-it's-so-humid Singapore. And putting my hand out of the window in the morning to decide whether it's short or long sleeved tops for the day, or if I should bring 1 or 2 jackets to school.

1 month is not long enough for me to truly experience life anywhere. Neither is it short enough for it to seem like a mere vacation. But I think everyone would agree with this- that this was an experience of a lifetime.

Laid bare at 1:47 pm
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Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Forget-this-not

So a month's gone by since I first stepped on Swiss ground.

A month, a whole month.

Yesterday night we had our closing dinner at some chinese restaurant in Austria. It felt like prom night all over again. People were taking pictures and running from one end of the hall to the other just to satisfy the need to be trigger-happy. And of course, the need to get closing shots of everyone who's been a part of this entire one month course.

Unlike prom though, all the food was finished, completely wiped out. C'mon, not-so-good chinese food is still chinese food all the same. I'm a definite taker. There was fried rice (ricericerice!), deep-fried baby veal, stirfried beef with chili, pork and mushrooms, sweet and sour chicken, stirfried vegetables and szechuan soup (that wasn't too spicy for me, for once! Joy!). Normally in Singapore, I never touch any of those diabetes-inducing icky chinese deserts, but the chilled longans in syrup very happily found their way to my stomach. There comes a point in time when marzipan pies, powdered sugar tarts, chocolate-everythings and custard puffs become cloying, and the tinned goodness of Asian deserts becomes more than a desire.

I sat with Kenneth, Carl, Manoj, Anna, Pearl, Marco and Ah Goong for dinner. Carl was as usual, his laugh-a-minute poker straight face self. He wants to be the next Pope in 10 years time, and sell the Vatican City cathedral for an undisclosed number of racing Ferraris. Ahaha holy water will never be holy again if that were to happen. :)

Shout-outs and thankyous due to the people who have made this summer term unforgettable for me:

Firstly, the biggest thank you of all goes to ANNA- the very kind assistant to the lousiest (and dumbest) professor in the world, whom I was unlucky enough to have as my principle prof. His only saving grace is Anna. She coordinated everything for us, and was always there, always helping, always smiling. Nothing would have been achieved without her.

Next, to my housemates KENNETH, HUI KIE and BEN-
KENNETH, for always being there for me. At low points, high points, crazy points, sleepy points, hungry points. For listening, and never judging. Thank you
HUI KIE, for your delicious meals! And for mothering us up, and being the only other girl in the house aside from me. :)
BEN, for your 'Beer, anyone?' moments, and for the laughter you brought (when you weren't MIA.. hmmm?)
(And yes, nothing would be the same without you, Oh Wei Ming! Haha) ;)

PEARL, who was always like an older sister to me. I will always remember the times we talked, laughed, spied, gossiped in coded language, ate chocolates and when you aunt-agonied me. ilu*

EUNICE, who always never failed to amaze me with her ability to down maggi mee every single day. And who was always ready with wise words and a hug.

CLARINDA, who shared food and said the same things with me all the time. And who never failed to impress me and make me jealous with her endless string of A-pluses!

AMY, who always made me laugh and with whom I could always talk and be at ease with (not an easy feat for an anti-social being like me)

MANOJ, for his cooler-than-shit English ways and his free bash passes. Will always remember the Red Bull and Coke mornings, and the unmatching socks. :)

CARL, for sparing the Catholic community of his nonsense, for now. And for being so funny I'm always assured stitches when he is around. And for so religiously attending every class. And for being German and still attending basic German class with us, so he could help out and laugh at us at the same time.

ADRIANA AND MANUEL, the Spanish couple with ZsaZsaZu passion! I love Adriana for her style and for the way she is so easy to talk to (Mango, Zara!)

LE, TJ, YINGYING- the exchange students I was so glad to have a chance to meet. And c'mon TJ, must you always hate me on Wednesdays and Sundays?!! Haha

FABIAN, for always capturing videos of people in their stupidest moments.

VICTORIA, for being one of the most honest and direct people I have ever met. And yet, always being ready with a laugh and something to make anyone feel better than they do.

USHUS, whose name I can never spell. For being the crazy dancing mama with that head-bobbing thang from Basel. And for the warm hugs and awwwww-moments

MARCO, for looking good and being mysterious. Haha no I'm kidding. For being so sincere he melted someone else. Ahaha

DANIEL, for his crazy boozing and partying ways. Tsk tsk :)

WEICHENG & MICHELE, for providing the butter-would-melt example of being a couple. (Heard that, Oh Wei Ming the Stoic?)

SHIHUI & MELISSA, for laughing all the time and for sharing secret chuckles with me about some other people. Haha we're evil

VICTOR, for knowing my lulu as well! Haha I'm kidding la.. For being everyone's photographer and being so nice and obliging :)

WENDY, for convincing me that eating ice-cream in cold weather will only make you warmer! Haha

SAM, for sketching the craziest pictures of Puffy Chong and his huggeeee nostrils and fortune-teller beard.

BERNICE, for being my fellow SC girl! :) Why do you have to go home so early??!

VOLKER, for being so damn smart in class, and for his sheepish smile and embarrassed chuckles.

MICHAEL, for looking so scary but being so nice. And for the free party invites in Zurich. We will be there! :)

-A whirlwind of a month. I'll never forget this.

Laid bare at 11:52 pm
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Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Dachau

This is worth a post on its own- Even though it was part of the trip to Munich. Dachau was an experience I will never forget.

We went to the Dachau Concentration Camp (male labour camp) in the afternoon after the Third Reicht tour in the morning. Throughout the entire tour, I didn't take a single picture with anyone's face in it. (Not on the Third Reicht tour too) Dachau is just not the kind of place you can say you enjoyed yourself in, not the kind of destination you can go all trigger happy in and smile for the click of a camera. It's not that I went there just to feel ethereal pain, within the confines of one of the 1st Nazi Concentration Camps ever built. It's just that the things you learn there are the kind of things you instantly look heavenward and thank God that you didn't have to live through, and you get to feel just a microscopic fraction of the pain of being an actual inmate there.

When we arrived, the first thing that I thought was: Why is everything so grey? Grey was the gravel that we stepped on the moment we entered the camp grounds, grey was the bunkers they slept in, grey were the walls, and even the sky was grey. Some kind of setting huh? So apt..
The iron gates that closed the prisoners in read Arbeit Macht Frei, that means 'With work you will be free'. Such a perverse promise, when all they wanted was to curb their freedom, compromise their dignities, and work them to death.

What I found on a grey wall:
'May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933-1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defence of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men'

We went to the Maintenance Hall, which has now been converted to a museum. I only regret not having an entire day there, because there was just so much to see, and so many accounts to read. I would have pored over every excerpt, every article and every display if I had time on my side. This is my long and draggggyyy account of the place. Which for the sake of the eyesight of the people who bother to read this- I will segment into parts, and caution you to read this in different sittings.

A life no more
The entrance room was called the Shunting. That was where the inmates had themselves registered and their personal belongings taken away from the officers. There, they lost their names and were given instead, arm bands and coded triangles for their identities. We saw identity cards, passports, letters fathers wrote to their babies back home, stamps, permits, passes.. Everything that acknowledges an indentity, everything that defined who you were as a person. At Dachau, the prisoners were labelled with coloured triangles and other symbols. It was worse in Auswitz (an extermination camp in Poland), because there the inmates had their identity numbers tattooed into their arms. It was as if the Nazis had condemned them to a life of imprisonment, and inked into their skins the fact that they were sub-human. In Dachau, homosexuals were given pink triangles, political prisoners red ones, capos (prisoners assigned leadership over their other prisoners) green triangles, among others. And a red circle with a dot in the middle meant they thought you were a likely escapee. So life could be made hell just by officers looking at the striped sleeves of inmates, bearing the symbols that represented who the Nazis insisted you were.

Roll Call
Every morning when they woke, before they were sent off to work, they had to be present at Roll Call. This could be as quick as half an hour, and it could take as long as 24 hours. Even sick people were dragged out in the open to be counted. Corpses of men who had died during the night were laid out to be counted as well. Numbers over lives. They had to stand at attention with their arms at their side, never looking a Nazi officer in the eye. In the later part of the war, the Roll Call system became less brutal because the Nazis needed the men to work as much as possible, with the lack of manpower (they had killed off so many) and the pressing amounts of labour and work to be done. They wanted the men put to work as soon as possible, and Roll Call became less stringent and precise. It became apparent to me that human lives weren't valued here. If this were a game, they were not the opposing team playing against the Nazis. They were the pawns in a chess game, the ball kicked around in a soccer game, and the hanky thrown around in Tag.

Living Conditions
We looked at the living conditions in the barracks where they lived. What was built to contain 50 men housed 400. With diseases spreading so rampantly and people dying all the time, this was horrific. They slept in bunk beds, and our guide told us that the men sleeping at the top bunks tended to have a better chance of survival than the ones at the bottom. For one, it was warmer at the top. But more importantly, with diseases like dysentery, bodily fluids and infected liquids dripped from the top to the bottom, infecting the ones at the lower decks. And the barracks had to be in prime conditions at all times. The wooden floors had to gleam, and the inmates weren't given anything to shine them with. Unreasonable demands as such made their lives miserable. And if a spot was found, or the blankets weren't placed in perfect triangles, you could be tortured or executed for that. You could say I was shocked at the complete disregard for a human life, and the complete disdain for dignity. I think Meng will quit complaining about the pain of NS life now. Stand-by-beds never got you killed, at least.

Medical Experiments
Another thing that was painful to look at was the display on the Medical Experiments conducted by the Nazi doctors on living inmates. Like the kind you would do on lab rats and toads. They did pressure experiements that made them cringe in absolute pain, they plunged their bare bodies in icy water to 'ascertain at which point death occurs', they carved them up like lifeless pieces of stretched skin, and bent their bony bodies in unnatural mangling. I read that the head of all these experiments was Josef Goebbels, one of Hitler's right-hand men. In the end he committed suicide with his entire family when the Nazi reign came to an end. A death much more painless than what he had subjected his victims to.

Punishment
There was a hall set aside specifically for punishment. Although this wasn't the only place it could happen. Anywhere in the camp, subject to the perverse creativity of the Nazi officers, torture was carried out anywhere. There was the bullwhip, to be cracked in a seemingly simple command of '25'. Inmates had to count each stroke out of 25, and if they passed out, the whipping started from 1 again when they woke up. Inmates were also suspended from the ceiling beams by metal chains. This caused shoulder dislocations and sometimes, a slow and painful death.
The green lawn at bordering the fence of the camp was forbidden ground for inmates to step on. Men from the guard towers would fire instantly if they saw inmates on it. Sometimes the Nazis used this to finish off inmates they wanted dead. They took the caps of the inmates and threw them onto the lawn. Being without a cap at Roll Call the next day meant that inmates would face severe punishment or torture or even death. So either way, the guy was dead. Some prisoners simply stepped onto the lawn, and awaited the instant bullet that would kill them, because they knew what it meant for them.
To prevent escape, the camp was surrounded by barb wire fences that were charged with 10000 volts- instant death upon touch. And there was a dry moat and a wet stream that detered escapees. And even if you managed to get over the fence, the Nazi Headquarters was positioned menacingly right outside the fence.

Brotherly Love
Our guide told us that what helped many of the inmates survive such gruesome torture was the solidarity they got from their brotherhood. At mealtimes, you wouldn't want to be first in line because the top layer of the soup was simply nutritionless water. And you wouldn't want to be last too, for fear everything ran out. You would want to position yourself somewhere near the end so that if there was meat in the soup, it would settle near the bottom. For some inmates who knew they were fitter than others, they voluntarily went first to drink the skimmed water just so their compatriots who were sicker could have more nutrition. Dachau was a male camp with very few female inmates. The few women who were there were forced to become become prostitutes. The Nazis wanted this to be an incentive for the males to work harder, so they offered them such 'incentives' occassionally. But out of solidarity and for not wanting to be mocked by their fellow prisoners, these services were very rarely utilized. And also because they wouldn't want to subject their fellow inmates to the same type of humiliation and abuse they themselves knew only too well.

It reeked of death
Dachau was not an extermination camp. The Dachau occupents who were sentenced to the gas chambers were sent to nearby Flossinberg. There were gas chambers built at Dachau, but strangely they were never used. We went in to take a look at what the Nazis termed Brausebad. This means 'showers', and they used to tell the inmates that they were going into the gas chambers to take showers, just so they wouldn't meet any resistance. Now the Germans don't use the word Brausebad to mean showers anymore. There are simply too many bad memories of the Holocaust associated with the word. Now they use the French word Dusche for showers. Once more, a Never Again conotation. Cyanide pellets were placed in containers and let into the room from the side, while warm air filled the room from the ceiling, so that the poisonous reaction would ensure the inmates died as soon as possible. They disinfected them before they entered the showers, simply because they wanted their striped uniforms back for repeated use. To think, a uniform was worth more than a human life. And next to the gas chambers was the new crematorium, called Barrack X. This was built after that old one couldn't take any more bodies. Prisoners were forced to cremate their fellow inmates and because the Nazis didn't want the massive number of deaths to be known, the work here was very secretive. That only meant that the people working at the crematorium were conveniently put to death by the officers after their shifts were completed. Hooks still hang from beams suspended from the ceiling, from which it was common for the officers to hang people.

Keeping Vigil
The Dachau Camp is the only camp with 4 different religious monuments in it- Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Russian Orthodox. Such was the extent of the need to remember what happened, and to pray that such a horror would never be repeated. In the Catholic Memorial, there is always someone praying inside. Every minute, every second, every moment., even up til today.

Remembering
Wreaths line the walls of the sign that marks the reign of terror of the Nazis in the Dachau camp: 1933-1945. People from different parts of the world come here to share the grief of those who passed here. There is a huge structure constructed in memory of the inmates and their pain. It is a frame of bent bony bodies suspended on a barbed wire fence. It says a million things. And represents a million more.
There is also a sculpture on the walls near the wreaths. This is of 3 linked chains, signifying imprisonment. Different triangles surround these chains, symbolic of the different inmates who were once in Dachau. There are no pink triangles though, because the acceptance of homosexuality was not passed in Germany until 1967. This was created before that. Green triangles were also missing, because they represented the capos. Some capos treated their fellow inmates brutally, and they were despised after the war. In my opinion, their suffering should not have been undermined by excluding them from this memorial. They probably did what they had to do out of necessity, for they had to learn to survive too.
Near the gas chamber and the crematorium, there is a sculpture of a liberated inmate, significantly placed there to show the paradox between the living and the dead. This figure is a gaunt man with his hands in his pockets, one leg placed before the other, and his face tilted up to look another person in the eye. A very different picture from the man who would be in the Roll Call position.

Never Again
All in all, there were so many memorials and things to remind anyone visiting Dachau that such a horror should never be seen, or felt by a living being ever again. Dachau was shocking and it was disturbing because a single human being had the power to make this all possible. Things that ordinary people would cringe at, or even tear at if they were to merely listen to the accounts of what went on in the camps.

Never again.

Laid bare at 4:51 pm
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Munich- The Home Team and the Third Reicht

-Thanks for all the people who cared so much, and who sent messages and emails to check how I was feeling. I'm ok now, back to the same (good, I hope) footing. Thank you all very much. You are very appreciated. Iloveyouall.

Got back from Munich on Saturday, and it was an experience of a lifetime. Spent Saturday (cut Falkenberg's class) and Sunday there. The 2 days couldn't have been more different from one another. One was full of colour, noise and celebration. The other was a walk down the past, and my old history textbooks coming to life right before my eyes. Spectacular.

We arrived on Saturday to a Munchen Bahnhof that was bursting at the seams with people. The Home team Bayern Munich was playing the final match of the season against Nurnberg. The'd already won the championship for a couple of weeks, but the concluding bang is always a must-see, I guess. was a riot. The local Polizei, clad in green, had to patrol the arriving platforms. Especially the ones carrying fans from the Away team, cos there was a fair bit of squabbling and shoving between the fans. People were holding beer mugs at noontime, and getting a little woozy already.

We took their equivalent of the MRT to the stadium where the match was being played. Every station it stopped at, the train got more cramped, noisier and happier. People would burst out in sudden song and cheer, and suddenly the whole cabin would echo after them. There was so much pride in the air, it's something I've never seen or experienced before. Total strangers bonding because of the pride they have over their Home team.

We got to the stadium in time for the match. But didn't get to enter (much to Weiming's chagrin) because it was a total sell-out. Outside the stadium, Adidas set up a carnival. There were mini-soccer pitches, 1-on-1 games, caged games, and even this goalnet set up in the middle of the water for guys to take aim and shoot. I've learnt 4 names in the Home Team! Haha I know Oliver Kahn, Makaay, Hargreaves and Ballack. Not bad for a clueless soccer idiot right? Haha.

So you can imagine how crazy the crowd went when Bayern finally won 6-3. There was a huge procession down Marienplatz after that. And a stage was set up for the team to receive the trophy. Not that we managed to see it upclose cos it was just so so crowded. The streets were swollen with people. Meng tried hoisting me up so I could get a picture of the team onstage, but it was a futile attempt :( Managed to get a very minute picture of them from some obscure corner, but you have to squint to see it.

We had a great dinner after that. I had the best potato salad I have ever had and cornbread. Kenneth had pork cutlet, and Meng (in true gluttony fashion) had pork knuckle. The layer of crisp skin and thick fat never even fazed him one bit as he chowed down. And the bier gartens were full of screaming, singing, drunk fans decked out in the season's jerseys. I've realized one thing about Germany.. The ladies who serve beer are not the quintessential young women in garters, nylon stockings and little black dresses with slits-up-to-there. There, brisk old women with bad perms and wrinkly necks dish up the booze and complementary bratwurst. They wear traditional garb, green and white frocks and black stockings. Not your average beer poster girl. And get this, there was free beer for all Bayern fans (I mean, who wouldn't claim to be a Bayern fan under such a proposition?) Frei bier fur alle Bayernfans. Meng and Kenneth drank 2 or 3 mugs each, on top of the half-litre they downed before that. And I was a happy camper with my pineapple (ananas!) gelato scoop! Wish they had lychee martini or vodka though haha

The next day we went for Hitler's Third Reicht Tour in the morning. Buildings and structures which would have had no significance at all to us suddenly became so rich and full of history that it took a while for me to fully comprehend everything that was happening in front of me. And Hitler's reign in terror was opened up to us through a very experienced guide whom I think has studied Hitler's regime and personal life to no end. Bear with me while I journal all this down.

Hitler was not German by birth. He was born in Austria, in the town next to the place the current Pope was born and raised in. Strange that such paradoxes occur- one of such overwhelming evil and one that would come to stand for peace and catholicism. We even learnt that Hitler didn't make it to the Viennese Academy of Art because of his inability to depict animate objects. I guess this says alot about him being inhuman, and having no qualms about taking away human lives.

We visited the BierHalle where he made his first public speech, as well as the avenue through which he staged his march and the BierHalle Putsch at. The German people did not want to resurrect the Gestapo (secret police) headquarters after it was destroyed simply because it held too many bad memories and nightmares so they simply put up a signage there. It now houses a Deutsch Bank branch, a very insignificant structure in place of the bad past it once held. I've realized that many of the memorials and historical structures that date back to Hitler's reign of terror have not been restored to their former glory. They have been replaced by simple plaques and memorials have been put in areas inconvenient to visit. It's almost as if they know about their past, but it's not something they want to glorify and see again. It's quite different from the Japanese. The Japanese have distorted history, and even changed information in the textbooks they use for their children, to erase the horrific role the Japs played in WW2. The Germans openly keep these bits of history with them, there's no denying it ever happened, and they don't attempt to hide anything either. Neither do they wish for such a horror to ever happen once more. Never Again is something I heard quite a bit of that day - Nie Weider

We saw the statue of a sleeping soldier, it's called the Unknown Bavarian Soldier. It was built in honour of all the Bavarian sons lost in all the wars; the numbers exceed the populations of some countries. There was a carving done on one side of the wall, which depicted soldiers running. This was done after WW1, when the desire for power and an occupationistic quest for the rise of the German race was still the dricing force in the country's leadership. On the opposite side was another wall with a carving of 12 tombstones with crosses over them. This signifies the death of the running soldiers, the death of war, and the death of such bloodshed and pain. This was done after WW2. I thought it was a beautiful way of expressing the fact that Germany never wanted to have anything to do with war and pain ever again, and the resurrection of such a regime would never be seen again. On the same site there was a black block that was a memorial to 5 young students who called themselves the White Rose- Die Weisse Rose. They died for their beliefs and their efforts to spread peace and individualism, concepts that Germany never knew during the Nazi reign of terror.

We also saw the Nazi headquarters. Today it is used by the local university as a theatre and a place for the Arts. Very different from the time when Hitler used to walk up the stairs to his office, just a straight route from the front doors. I don't quite know how to describe this feeling. We were looking at structures that serve a very different purpose today. Many of these are now used as banks, schools, theatres, ordinary junctions and streets. But they were so much more in the past, they held so much history and so much presence in the time of their being. Maybe the best fitting way to describe this is that I felt small. I felt so overwhelmed by the wealth of rich history and information behind these ordinary looking buildings and structures, and the information and lessons they now give to people of today looking back in retrospect.

It was a powerful lesson, and reminder. And I'm glad I got to experience it.

Laid bare at 9:46 am
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Friday, May 13, 2005

How did I find the heart to do it? How did it die?

Why do I feel that the more days go by, the less I know? And the less I know, the more I hide.

It shouldn't be this way. Pleas and promises- not listened, not broken. Simply hardened, simply gone.

Maybe it's a question of loving too much. And a means of hurting the same.

I'm a bird with a broken wing, and I can't remember how to fly. I used to remember myself soaring.

Laid bare at 9:03 pm
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Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Buy me a Benz!

Just got back from a trip to Stuttgart (Germany) and Basel (Switzerland). I'm so so so tired, but there's a party tonight and we're on the guestlist, so it's no-charge for us! woohoo! :) So yeah, poor exhausted little me is going to stay out tonight and somehow find the energy to drag myself out of bed tomorrow morning for class at 9

The trip was ok. The companies we visited were oh-so-boring and industrial. Ok maybe except for the Daimler Chrysler Mercedes Benz Museum visit at Stuttgart. There were so many models on display there. From the very first engines built by Benz and Daimler respectively to the F1 racing cars, from the vintage beauties to the Merc built by Giorgio Armani... The guys were all excited, and for the first time Weiming was scampering for me to take pictures of HIM. Haha what's it with guys and engines? Lots of eye candy, but for me (and for practically every girl there too), it all started to look the same after awhile. I was pretty impressed by the Merc driven by this pope before the late Jean Paul II. It is SO HUGE. Practically the size of half my room. Meng told me all cars carrying passengers in high standing and Presidents are built with higher sides and thicker shells to prevent assasination attempts.

The Daimler Chrysler factory was boring though. The work speed in the factory is so atrociously slow that I bet if they employed Asian or Latino workers, they would produce up to 5 times more cars in any given day. Even the machines and robots were working like snails. Made me so sleepy just looking at them. All these protective trade unions and worker rights aren't gonna be good for the productivity and the economy, that's for sure.

Spent a night at Basel in the crummiest hotel I have ever had to stay in. Euch! Sam and Weicheng even found termites in their room. Fabien (he's Swiss) was telling us that a lot of people don't like Swiss hotels because they're pretty rundown and the owners don't bother renovating, yet the rates they charge are typically Swiss- skyhigh. We had chinese food for dinner! Had vegetarian e-fu noodles with Clarinda at Mister Wong's. Yumyumyum! The party in TJ and Marco's room after that was pretty fun though the drinks were not.

Woke up this morning with a headache and too little sleep. The same crummy hotel served expired yogurt in their breakfast buffet. Expired for over a week and a half. Double Euch. And the rest of the day was just crappy. CIBA was just all about chemicals and fumes. And saftey goggles which did not fit. And the lunch they served was crappy too, the tuna steak tasted like rubbery pork. La Roche after that wasn't any better, cos they just went on and on about how established their company is, and fed us with statistics and profit and sales margins.. Bleah, I mean tell us something about strategic management at least?

Ok I sound like a complain queen. But it really got better on the way back. Talked to the Spanish couple in our class, whom I've never talked to before. Adriana's really nice, and she was telling me about the number of Zara stores back in Spain. She lives in the Canary Islands and they've got 22 outlets alone in that little island. Imagine. Celest will be let loose in Spain, most certainly. For now, she will just starve.

Laid bare at 8:54 pm
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Monday, May 09, 2005

The way to an orgasm- CHOCOLATE

We visited the Maestrani Chocolate Factory today, and boy did I eat the equivalent of my 10 Franks outing fee there. You know how it is when your tummy is full and happy.. Mymy I am one happy camper today.

When we got there, there was a video on the history of the Maestrani Company. Which in my opinion, was just a very poor attempt at a sales pitch. But never the matter, my mind was on finer things. Like the chocolates they placed in welcome baskets at the door. Ever the ugly Singaporeans, Weiming and Kenneth instinctively seated themselves in strategic positions, for full-range access to the little nuggets of gold. And throughout the whole time the video was playing, they were either unwrapping chocolates, or popping them into their waiting mouths, or reaching for more in the baskets behind them. Geeee..

And they served us hot melted milk chocolate after that. Now at this point, Toe must be wondering, since when did Celest the non-chocolate-appreciator switch camps? Since she discovered European chocolates!!! They taste so so different from the crap we've been unwrapping out of their junky air-flown packages back home. Because there is much more palm oil added to preserve the chocolates that are exported into Asia, instead of the quintessential cocoa butter-- this explains the taste difference. Yesyes I'm an elitist when it comes to food. It's the best, or nothing. :)

And we got to try popping chocolate, dark chocolate, chocolate with a banana marshmellow centre, honeycomb chocolate in bumblebee wrapping, praline creams, white chocolate, amaretto, andalltheresticantremember. Yumyumyum, I need a sugar daddy! To buy me all the chocolate I want!

And don't worry, I bought chocolates for all of you! So when I come back, and you get a chocolate from me, it means Celest loves YOU ok?

Sugar high* wheeeeeeee!

Laid bare at 8:07 pm
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Sunday, May 08, 2005

It's Saturday, my love

I've decided to blog as often as I can, because I have thus far given up on penning down my travel journal. Typing is so much easier for my already vitamin-and-mineral-deficient fingers, and I don't need another bunion growing on my third right finger. So haha, this shall be my travelogue :) All up for laziness (and depriving poor Kenneth of his laptop! Haha but I made butter sugar toast for him, and shared my chocolates, so he shouldn't complain too much about this infringement huh?)

Today Weiming and I stayed in St Gallen, our second Saturday alone here.. Last week the rest went to Bern, and we happily overslept after the Pink Party. Heh but last week I dragged the poor guy shopping all over town with me, and at the end he looked like I had put him through a paper shredder. So today was definitely better for him.

Woke up to wintry weather. The weatherman said zero was the lowest point today. But smartasses we are, we didn't listen. And he wore his Puma windbreaker, while I was contented with my Adidas sweater. Over plain thin T-shirts. Big mistake. Big BIG mistake. While hiking, you should never attempt stunts like underdressing. The consequences bite, literally. :(

So we hiked up the hills of St Gallen, also known as the Three Pools. Started with ok bearable weather at the foot of the hill, but once we finished the staircase-bit, the cold started to bite into our jackets. The Three Pools give a complete view of the entire town, from one end to the other end that meets Lake Constance. It was pretty slippery on the way up, because it rained the night before, and there was also a big lorry that went uphill before us, muddying up the entire track. Not the smoothest of climbs.

The fields on the way up are just about the purest green I have ever seen. Think of the Ricola ads always playing on TV, where they show endless meadows of green and running spring water, and you've got the picture. And marigolds and wildflowers dot the entire blanket of grass. Lavender sprigs, baby's breath, clumps of tiny flowers in dainty shades of pink deepening into darker central hues of purple. I almost wanted to do a Maria, a'la The Sound of Music's opening scenes. Wanted to run across the hillside and spread my arms and burst out in song..
The hills are alive!
With the sound of music!

But I figured the innocent people living on the hill would want to keep their windowpanes intact, so I didn't.

Saw so many dogs running, and kids playing. And everyone was braver than this cold lout here, who was constantly whining about how cold she was. :( And I've realized that the dogs in Switzerland are so obedient you can bring them just about anywhere, and they're as good as gold. Easier to handle than small children, apparently haha.. And there was a cross erected on the top of one of the higher points, and a small altar honouring Mother Mary somewhere near it. Very serene, very peaceful.

Oh give me back my ODAC days. I'd gladly endure the cold and blisters for sights like these. Anytime.

Laid bare at 4:56 am
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Friday, May 06, 2005

Danke Gott, ist es Freitag!

TGIF. Thank God it's Friday! Long post ahead, but I'm just so happy today I HAVE to write about everything :)

Today was just fantastic. Probably the best day I've spent in Europe thus far. So different compared to yesterday's disappointments. :) It's pretty unbelievable, but today I had breakfast in Switzerland, lunch in Germany, and dinner in Austria! Over here, the border towns mark rail distances equivalent to 4 or 5 MRT stops back home. Just 10 minutes, and you might be in another country.

We started the day with the intention of going to Bregenz, a town on the border of Austria. Just Weiming and I, without the whole hassle of herd behaviour, and sans the pocket-blazing pricetags we've become so accustomed to. Bregenz is just a 50 minute train ride from St Gallen, but by the time we got there, it was raining and my cheeks were completely puffy and red from the cold. It was a formidable zero-degree wind we were pitting ourselves against, and Meng's one pathetic jacket wasn't going to hold up. Met this nice man at the bus station when we were trying to figure out which bus to take to the town centre. (by the way, Austria is just across the Swiss border, but it is SO different in terms of transport punctuality. Exact schedule adherement is a Swiss brand, but in Austria the trains are so tardy that the time-boards show 2 times- Arrival Time, and Actual Time. The paradox is impossible to miss) He told us about this town called Lindau, a 10 minute train ride away from Bregenz. He explained that Lindau was the only town this part of Europe left untouched during the second world war, and all worthwhile an experience. What he FORGOT to tell us was that Lindau was in Germany, so we ignorantly went there without knowing we crossed another border.

And the man was right. Lindau is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I am not moonlighting for the ProLindau Bordensee Tourism Board, nor am I being an airheaded clueless tourist. This is my opinion, mein meinung, if it counts for anything. When we arrived, we were greeted by an old town. Old town, NOT a constructed pile of crafted cobble lanes and structures deliberately scrubbed down to a sepia finish just to make it look antiquated. It was just that, an old town, left just the way it always has been. From the lighthouses to every sidestrasse and little gasse, everything was just so real. There was a Lion Quai stone statue guarding the harbour overlooking Lake Constance, and even forts left behind from the war. And we didn't even realize we were in Germany til Meng noticed that there were only German cars around. And that was three-quarters into the time we spent there.

Tummies are easily the most satiable item in Lindau. Just an hour away from the wretched Swiss pricetags, and the cost of food is so much lower. Very good news for two hungry growing kids. Ok, maybe just Meng fits into that category. Normally Asian food is really pricey in St Gallen. Even the crummy looking ones decorated with worn faux-silk chairs and garish red lanterns with funny names like Golden Dragon cost a bomb to dine at. Just a plate of stirfried tofu and vegetables costs CHF15 (SGD22) in St Gallen, an austere vegetarian monk can jolly well eat himself bankrupt anywhere in Switzerland (except in Geneva). But in Lindau, our tummies were in for a treat! A plate of steamed rice with stirfried chickenm mushrooms and REAL vegetables (yes real ones, I am not talking about canned peas and carrots) cost Meng just 4.50E (SGD10). Which is about CHF7, a steal by European standards. So we went around filling our tumtums and widening our smiles with every additional morsel of food we put into our mouths. Gelato for 0.60E per scoop (yes it was hell cold though), bratwurst sausages served with homemade tomato relish in hot crusty bread for 2.20E, Ritter Sport bars for 0.70E each, nussgipfel for 1E, bread for 0.50E... Culinary heaven, and so much more we wanted to feast on, our eyes being larger than our actual tummies- Whole grilled spring chickens for 1.90E, hamburgers with bursting patties for 1.50E, kebabs for CHF4 cheaper than in St Gallen, more gelato, chocolate bars cheaper even than in Singapore, meats grilled tender enough to slip off their accompanying bones... If there is anywhere to burst your arteries and kill your diet plans, it is Germany.

But yes, besides eating, we had a wonderful time walking around the entire town too. We went to the Zum Cavazzen, a quaint museum which thrilled us for close to an hour and a half. The entrance fee was 2.50E, but we ended up paying for the kinder kasse, the child ticket costing just 1E each! Looking like secondary school kids was never more of a plus point than it was today. :) Happy cheapo campers. The first level was a Marklin display room, the German version of Meccano. Marklin is even better than Lego- each set has these metal pieces with holes to insert screws into, wheels, spokes, gears, and other stuff budding engineers would play with. The structures that people actually built with these small pieces of metal and scraps are just amazing. There was the Eifel Tower, which was ven taller than me, numerous antique cars, bombers, ships, aeroplanes, fighter jets, trains, and even a multi-storey carpark.

The second storey was a music museum, which had so many pictures and paintings of Victorian-themed instruments and musical events. Which led me to conclude that Victorian men expected their women to do 3 things- 1. be fat 2. be around for them to wrap their amorous arms and legs around and 3. to play musical instruments. How very hedonistic! And the third storey showcased Victorian furniture, paintings, toys, and religious artifacts. There were antique clocks from the sixteenth century, pioneer maps of Lindau, and paintings of the cruxifiction of Christ and sculptures of Mother Mary. Among countless other things that make you go Wowwwww when you fix your eyes on them. The playroom had a gigantic wooden bicycle, porcelain dolls with painted red lips, a huge doll house with every room lovingly furnished (to the very last rug and rocking chair), old board games from the 1930s and even poker cards yellowed with age.

In Lindau, the Protestant and Catholic churches are directly next to one another. The Protestant church of St. Stephen's is a more spartan sanctuary, with white walls and plain wooden pews. Quite different from the Catholic Minster of Our Lady convent church, which even had a life-size figure of Chirst on the Cross hanging from the ceiling. I've realized that in Europe, just like in Singapore, catholic churches are more lavishly decorated, and intricately designed. Weiming was explaining the 14 stations of Christ's cruxifiction to me, which is a permanent fixture in every cath church. Not something we have in the protestant church. All these differences reflect the diversity in each faith. The catholic church relies more on symbols and rituals handed down by traditional notions of honouring Christ and the saints, whereas for protestants, it is a more direct process.

Towards dinnertime we took a train back into Austria, and stopped at Bregenz again. Which by then by covered in a shower of pelting raindrops and grey clouds. Bregenz is slightly cheaper than Switzerland, but definitely not as much a backpacker's dream like Lindau is. Meng went through what seemed like his n-th kebab since we arrived in Europe. (doner kebabs and turkish food is the cheapest way to go here, if you've got a stomach like a guy's) So dinner was in a different country altogether. Jetsetting, the cheap way.

We went what the locals very directly call The Old Part of Town. The architecture of the houses and streets there was definitely quaint and old. Littered with ivy-covered cottages accompanied by writings marked with dates right from the 1500s, and manicured gardens, this wasn't the same kind of feel I got from the streets of Lindau. Somehow this felt more constructed, more deliberate, more like the recipient of restorative work than a legend left behind. Plus it didn't feel really safe because there were so many punks hanging around the quiet areas. I'm talking about punks with bleached orange hair, leather jackets and silver spiked garb, and enough beer bottles to cause serious damage to the liver. We passed a garage with sounds coming out from inside, and the clanging of glass accompanying a certain unsteady laughter. Call me paranoid or pluckpluckchickeny, but when you hear a garage full of people and beer, your best bet would be to move as far away from it as possible. Not really what you see in St Gallen, or the whole of Switzerland, for that matter.

Wonderful wonderful day. Well, it was the company that made it this way, wasn't it? The place is one matter, the person who shapes the experience together with you is another.

And the one person who made Friday so unforgettable, is about the only person who does this all the time for me. Just about.

Laid bare at 11:57 pm
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Thursday, May 05, 2005

Donnerstag, bummer of a day

Today marked the start of the long 4-day Ascension weekend. The Europeans love their holidays :) Which is good for us, it gives us more time to travel haha.. Celest the slack one comes out stronger than ever here.

Thursday was spent at Leichtenstein, with 8 other people. It's this small individual country right smack at the eastern tip of Switzerland, sharing a border with Austria as well. It's known for 2 things- its stamps and its false teeth! Haha Imagine that! It's ruled by a Monarchy, and a cabinet called the Diet (of all things), and they've got quite a cute crown prince, pity about the princess though haha..

We went to the PostMuseum to look at the stamp and post collection. The number of stamps they have printed up to date is just amazing. They had these display boards that you can pull out, and on each board there were stamps, stamp graphic plans and seal designs. There must have been close to a few hundred boards there. Bought a couple of stamps as well, and Victor got lucky with a Liechtenstein Monarchial first-day cover, which cost CHF12, but which he only paid CHF2 for. The salesgirl entered the cost wrongly.. Lucky lucky! Here, anywhere that uses the Frank rips you off, so budget ware and blur salesgirls are very welcome.

We walked up this steep hillroad to a castle, that unfortunately is closed all the time. So that was a non-event. The big mistake we made was to travel to Leichtenstein on a public holiday. Like I said before, the Europeans love their holidays and would never open their stores or museums to tourists like yours truly here. So non-event #2 was this art museum that we wanted to visit, but wanted to charge us CHF5 and did not allow pictures at all. And non-event #3 happened when we all got too greedy, and wanted second helpings of homemade ice-cream opened by a Filipino family, and were refused the initial discounts that we were given. All because Samuel the Tagalog expert wasn't around anymore. On another note, Sam's sketches are just amazing. He did a sketch of a horse statue in front of the Rathaus, as well as some spread-eagle sculpture in the town square.

And non-event #4 happened when my camera died on me permanently for the day when I wanted to capture a shot of the cathedral. Non-event #5 was when poor HuiKie's visa mini got stuck in a machine, just because some ditzy salesgirl pushed it up the wrong machine. Bullocks, what a bummer of a day. :( And Leichtenstein doesn't even feature on my passport, because the tourism office charges a freaking CHF2 just to stamp the word 'Leichtenstein' in fancy two-tone ink on a passport. Ridiculous innit?

Not exactly a great start to the long haul of free days, but hopefully it gets better tomorrow.

Glücklich. Nur mit Ihnen.

Laid bare at 11:24 pm
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Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Post-Geneva

Just got back from the 2-day trip to Geneva and Vevey. Both in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. It's amazing how 3 languages are spoken in the span of just one country. We drove for 5 hours and the diversity is just amazing. The transition from St Gallen to Geneva was so evident in not just the language, but also in the architecture, and in the common streets and faces we saw.

Yesterday was a trip to the Reuters HQ in Geneva. There is so much efficiency in just one building, it's kinda overwhelming sometimes. I mean, all those wirings and computers transmitting information in single database systems.. And so much support and manpower placed in simply ensuring all this information is disseminated correctly. It was quite a new experience, as techy as everything sounds. Oh yes! We also had the most amazing lunch there at the staff canteen (which is the place I think they keep their staff well-fed and VERY happy). We were given trays to take just about anything we wanted. There was lamb, steak, quiche, pie, salads, sauteed vegetables and mash, fries, soup, bread with garlic butter, meringue tarts, lemon pies, fruit and custard pies, souffles, mousse, fruit... I had pie and some sauteed carrots. Poor Weiming had to rush through his TWO plates stuffed full with food, because we were hurried pretty badly..

Went to the Singapore Permanent Office to the UN in Geneva in the morning, and it was pretty stale stuff that we heard. All copied from my history textbooks of yonder. Trade tariffs, agreement rounds, overall consensus.. ... We had one very outstanding speaker though, and he was talking about doing business in Europe. Very insightful stuff. The Nestle office at Vevey was next. I want to work in Nestle. Enough said. And this is also biased because they gave us an entire BOX of milk chocolates each, 2-tiered too. To hungry broke college kids, this is just sheer heaven. :) I'm a happy camper now. The chocolate dispensing machine at the Nestle Alimentarium, as well as the free Vanillochino Frappe I had also contribute to this newfound loyalty to Nestle.

I miss Lulu and Rox the most.. Lulu please take care of your ankle ok? Lala has a wonky knee from too many long cramped up bus rides :( Roxy, your holiday starts in like what, 5 days??! Remember to miss me more, and say hello to Minnie Mouse for me ok? Lovelove!

Laid bare at 7:23 am
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Monday, May 02, 2005

This is my my my beautiful Sunday

It's been a good weekend. Friday night was the annual night for all party-goers in St Gallen. The streets were filled with people, and lots of booze and jarring music, naturally. The main event was this music festival called the Honky Tonk night. For CHF20, you get to as many as 20 participating clubs or bars to listen to live bands play. But really, blazing a hole in my pocket so early into the trip is not my idea of wiseness. Not that thrift is my forte, so this kiamsiap phase is really rarity at its best.

We went to a Pink party, hosted by a girl most of us didn't even know. Everything there was pink.. The lamps, the carpet, the wigs people were wearing, the sangria drink they concocted.. And there was so much booze around. The entire fridge was stocked up with beer, vodka and other spirits. There was even booze in the bathtub, in a pool of ice. And party capers as well.. All very typical of the country of hospitality-- Switzerland. :)

Ended up at Macs after we left the party. I've never seen Macs opened til such a late hour, and so jammed up with people here before. Ben was trying to convince us he was sober (til now I don't quite know), and Pearl was really stuffing herself silly. A cheeseburger, fries, apple pie and 5 McNuggets. Amazing for the diet (proclaiming) queen! Haha

Needless to say, I was pretty zonked out the next day. Didn't manage to make it to Berne. A 630am meeting time is impossible! I don't know how the others managed it. Saturday was really good though, because I managed to spend quality alone-time with Weiming. Our first, since we got here! Haha.. He had a good Asian meal (CHF15! Exhorbitant!) while I chowed down on bread, once again. :( And we went shopping! Dragged the poor guy along with me while I shopped and tried on clothes. Bought 2 T-shirts for the warmer weather that's already hit us now.. Haha the kiamsiap queen has a nose for bargains. And we combed the streets and saw the weekend fruit market. Juicy punnets of strawberries going for just CHF2.50, very cheap by St Gallen standards! And we went to the organ concert at the cathedral in the evening. Heavenly sounds... Truly heavenly.. It made me just look skyward, at the murals and cherubic structures above me, and I was reminded of how everything was carved out right from the beginning by the Lord. The purest and best form of architecture you could ever hope to find.

Today was tiring... Went for Mass in the morning with the rest. And again, it was a beautiful experience with tradition and heavenly voices. They had a real string orchestra and a choir in the front. You haven't heard a real church choir til you've heard this one. None of us understood a single word that was being said (I didn't know anything except for the Lord's Prayer) cos the service was conducted in German.. But it was just an awesome feeling of communion and absolute time with the Lord. Something I haven't felt in a long time.

In the evening, a group of about 7 of us went on a hike with Anna. She's really the nicest of all the facilitators in charge of our group. (I kinda pity her having to work under Prof Chong though. He is, well, strange, to put it best) We hiked up one of the 3 poles --hills that give a complete aerial view of the entire town. It was such a good day, I managed to make it through just clad in the T-shirt and FBTs I ran and played frisbee in earlier. The view is just amazing. It's a little like taking postcards in your head. The green of the fields, dotted with bunches of spring.. Dandelions, lavendar sprigs, baby's breath, tulips in the brightest shade of red, forget-me-nots, and bluebells. At the end of many uphills and downhills, you have in your hand a tiny bouquet of everything you saw. And the expanse of the land, and the lushness of the embrace of nature, makes you want to drop everything and just lie in the grassy fields. To think of nothing, and remember nothing. But just to look at the blue canvas above- close enough to touch, but yet so far away it is too majestic to withhold.

Switzerland is really heaven on earth.
Himmel auf Erden.

Laid bare at 7:41 am
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