Approximately 2 weeks back from my Europe Summer cum Grad trip, with wonderful great memories, and I couldn’t have asked for more.
40 days (15 June – 24 July),
24hrs on the plane,
56hrs in the train (with 1 of them stuck for 1hr due to heavy storm which caused a tree to fall across the track),
5 countries (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic & Netherlands),
16 cities & towns,
11 accommodations,
30kg of shopping (in total),
18-36 Celsius (in the day) experienced,
25 packs of instant noodles, 2 packs of bak kut teh & 1 pack of porridge devoured,
n H&M shops sighted,
n wurst spotted,
n Mozart seen & heard,
many friends made, and
3 happy travelers 🙂
The trip revolved around a Summer Program organised by HHL, but really, it was just an excuse to travel. Haha. It marked a lot of “first” and “-est” for me as well:
- Longest trip I have been on, travelling to 5 countries and changing accommodation 11 times: Really have to thank my travel buddies to pull this off without much hitch esp logistically wise
- Longest time away from home
- First time studying overseas: We had difficulty finding a sign in the campus indicating the school name. LOL. And we learnt how good our profs are (we even had a pair of 双簧 profs there. LOL). Opps.. Haha
- First time staying in a boat: what an experience it was. Our boat was quite small (or rather, cosy). We were not able to do many things comfortable, except perhaps to lie on the bed. Haha. During the first night as the wind was quite strong, it became quite noisy as well with the waves hitting against the boat. The shower and toilet, fortunately were very clean, were in a building nearby, thus it felt like a camp for us. The slogan for the stay was: 将就就好. Hahaha.
- First time spending many consecutive days with friends: it was a really fun and great experience
- First time experiencing a 18 degrees Summer in Europe: Having been to Europe a few times in Summer, I thought the weather this time round would be similar as well, thus my luggage was filled with clothes for summer, with my windbreaker as the only piece to protect me from any cold weather. How wrong I was. When we landed in Munich, it was only around 20-24 degrees with cooling winds. Vienna was even colder, with a day high of 18 degree. I had no choice but to reinforce my equipment with a jacket and a scarf. The temperature began to feel like Summer later on, hitting a high of 36 degrees in Dresden, but it fell back to around 20 degrees in Amsterdam, our final stop. It’s a full circle eh? We were also fortunate because 2 days after we left Amsterdam, there was a huge storm across the countries. Trains stopped running from Central Amsterdam and flights from Amsterdam Airport were delayed. Imagine – us in a boat.. what a scene it would be.
- Consumed the most amount of alcohol during the short period: Being afraid that I would be drunk given my past experience in Munich, I didn’t really drink a lot. But still, given the cheap and good wine and beer there, I drank much more than I am in Singapore (where I don’t really drink).
- First overseas outdoor concerts: enjoyed great outdoor music in Prague and Hannover
- First time seeing so many H&Ms around: In the past when I was in Europe, I did not notice that there were so many H&Ms around. There were H&Ms in every city and in some places, there were even 2 or 3 on the same street, not far apart!
- First time consuming so many instant noodles during a short period of time: Given that my parents’ massive disapproval of instant noodles, I had to go overseas to consume instant noodles. Lol
- First time cooking for my friends (apart from Home Econs exam)
Though I been to some of the cities before this trip, revisiting these cities this time round gave me a totally different experience as we went to different places and had different experiences, especially in Budapest, Innsbruck, Berlin, and Prague, where I visited on a tour in the past.
- Munich: Though this was my 5th time there, I always felt refreshing to visit the city. I like its peacefulness, compactness (L-shaped city centre with almost everything) and vibrant-ness. Of course, there is also my favourite castle, Neuschwanstein.
- Vienna: Vienna, widely known for its music, was a place that has arts in the air. The streets seemed to have the artistic atmosphere, and street artistes playing music was a common sight. A different experience this time round, with a really funky and quirky decorated hotel, a visit to the Rathaus with gay parade carnival in front, and an attempt to catch the open air “opera” but it was just too cold.
- Budapest: The last time I visited was 10 years ago, on my first tour to Europe. I was with the tour then, and all I remembered as the cruise on the Danube. Budapest, this time, has struck me with its magnificent buildings (Buda Castle, Parliament) and vibrant-ness. Oh, not to forget its items are cheaper as compared to its neighbours. The B&B we stayed in was cheap (cheapest accommodation of our trip), clean and convenient.
- Salzburg: Third time in the city where Mozart kept appearing. Mirabell Gardens are one of the better gardens as usual, but I seem to spend lesser and lesser time each time I revisit the city…
- Innsbruck: I have been to Innsbruck on the same trip 10 years ago, though I kept hearing people syaing that it is a nice place, I have no recollection of it. Not any more though. This city, for me, was one of my favourite stops for our trip. Going up the Alps was an amazing experience (though it was in Summer), and seeing a city with Alps backdrop was an eyeopener. No wonder its tagline is: Capital of the Alps
- Frankfurt: Capital of Germany. We didn’t really spend much time here. Most memorable experience: the curry we ordered in a Japanese restaurant tasted like Asian (not Jap, Chinese, Malay, Indian) curry. Enough said.
- Cologne: Another city which I like, due to its compactness and vibrant-ness, but there was a little too many people on the Sat we were there. We visited the Lindt Chocolate Factory and it was a total eyeopener as we were able to come up-close with the machines that were described in one of our Operations case study. In fact, the whole process was the same and we could relate very well to it.
- Rüdesheim: Sundays in Germany are usually boring as shops are not open. Hence, we decided to embark on a wine-tasting trip to the home of Riesling wine. The wine museum was not recommendable to any tourist, though the wine was ok. I was surprised that the place seems quite famous, after all, it was filled with tourists, more than half were Chinese.
- Berlin: Like the other cities, though I have been to Berlin 10 years ago, I could not remember much of it. This trip was a total eyeopener for me as well, experiencing the historic side of Germany.
- Dresden: The only word to describe our Dresden trip was: hot, with a high temperature of 36 degrees. We went past a booth at a fair, which sprayed water at people. LOL. But what a sight it was to see a lot of ang mohs coming out for suntan on the grass. Lol
- Leipzig: It marked the start of our “studies”, with our 1-week stay in the city for the first part of our summer program. Having also no recollection of the city from my previous trip, except that it was badly damaged from WWII, this trip showed me the city proper. The city has lots of arcades and passages, left from its old wool trade days.
- Prague: This time, I finally get to witness the beauty of Prague, having kept hearing how beautiful it was (Jolin even has a song, 《布拉格广场》, on it). The city was immersed with history and coupled with colourful small alleys, huge square and vibrancy, it is not difficult not to like the city. Like Budapest, the standard of living was also lower than Germany. However, being a famous tourist place, it is quite crowded with a lot of tourists.
- Hannover: The stop we nicknamed, Hand Over, because it was more of a convenient stop for us before we proceed to Amsterdam. Our initial plan was to go Hamburg, but as Hamburg’s accommodation was too expensive, we decided to head to Hannover instead. The little city was really 麻雀虽小五脏俱全, with everything can be found in the city center, which was right next to the Central Station. We also experienced a night open air opera at the Rathaus. The opera was so well-liked and famous in the city that the huge park was packed with people and it was televised live on TV too. What was amazing was not only the opera, but the Rathaus at night too.
- Lubeck: My second time in this tiny town which has a very different architecture from the other parts of Germany, with its 招牌 short “twin towers” and its bricked structures. However, as it was a Sunday, it was quite quiet when we were there.
- Amsterdam: My second trip to the city in 3 years, but it was a totally experience going with my friends. Apart from the boat accommodation, we also went to Anne Frank House (but didn’t went in because of the looooong queue), Red Light District and Heineken Experience which was all first time for me.
- Zaanse Schans: The last time I was in Netherlands, I did not have the time to catch the famous windmills. Finally had the chance, in a town in the outskirts of Amsterdam. A peaceful little town, with a number of windmills. Nice to see them life in action.
It was a really great and fun experience and I don’t think I will have another opportunity to travel like we did, for more than a month (5 weeks to be exact) with the same friends (Louisa and Hing). It was really fortunate that we are a bunch of easy-going people and there are no major disagreements along the way (I have heard of many stories that friends who went on a long trip together came back losing their friendship) 🙂 A really big “Thank you” to them for making the trip a very fun and enjoyable one! I really really couldn’t have asked for more 😀