okay i've FINALLY got the first part of my europe pictures up. i've organised them into two parts, this first part is when i was with pam, the second is when i was with my grandparents.
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to say something about europe, it wasn't what i imagined. i kind of imagined having the time of my life and frolicking through museums and attractions. well, it was very fun, but not in the organised, planned way i'd expected. instead, the following happened.
1. we got lost
pam and i were lost most of the time, and got very stressed because we were lost. there was alot of PAM WHERE'S THE TOILET I NEED TO GO NOWWWW! and OHMYGOODNESS HOW ARE WE GOING TO EAT ALL THIS GELATO???
2. the weather was weird
we are singaporeans! (kind of) we are used to the weather being hot and predictable! instead, it was either freezing cold, or really hot, and so there was alot of grumbling and moaning. in florence, it was COLD AS GOLD and so we bought stockings, and wore everything we possessed to go to sleep. yes, there was one night where i was wearing four shirts and three pairs of socks.
3. in florence, we stayed in a tent
NO JOKE. but not just any tent, a private house tent. the name is, obviously, supposed to make us feel better about the fact that we are in a 3x3m box and being terrorized by THE BUG. THE BUG looks like some kind of strange earwig (mini dinosaur!) and on the one occasion we actually caught it (not including the occasion where it somehow got onto the ceiling of the tent and then proceeded to fall on my head and the occasion it got into our cheese supply, only to be found after we'd already eaten considerable amounts of said cheese) and threw it outside (because i refused to kill it) it made an about turn and came right back. i am serious, we watched it, and this proved it was not just any old weird-earwig/mini-dinosaur, it was THE BUG, and it had super homing-pigeon abilities.
the tent had no lights. zero light. its okay in the day, you know, when we have the sun, but at night it is dark, my friends, very, very dark. and so we went to the handy-dandy camp mini-mart and looked for a torch, but the torch was like 30 singapore dollars (!!!) so we bought candles instead. of course, we needed somewhere to put the candles, and so, using our powers of ingenuity, we began constructing the Patent Pam&Claire Candle Holder (For 3x3m Private House Tent use only)
we had the following resources:
a) candles
b) empty plastic bottles
c) copious amounts of scotch tape
d) a flimsy cardboard box from the muffins we'd bought
e) GOD-GIVEN BRAINS
sadly, our GOD-GIVEN BRAINS failed us the first time, when we somehow roped the flimsy cardboard box in the 50cm space (yes, that's all the space we had) between our beds with the scotch tape, and then stuck the candle to the box. this was okay, until i knocked the candle over trying to get out of bed (our only exit was now blocked) and almost set our beloved private house tent on fire. our hopes slightly dimmed, we just stuck the candle into the opening of one of the plastic bottles. thus we had a somewhat wobbly but nonetheless light and warmth-giving candle holder. we also used this set-up to cremate THE BUG that we found in our cheese (it was already dead okay! no animal cruelty here, just morbid curiousity). it made a crackling noise and the whole tent was filled with this acrid stench. clearly, THE BUG's superpowers extended to biological weapons. hey America! we know where Saddam hid his WMD!
the tent was also conveniently located ten thousand miles away from the camp toilet, which meant that the Nature-ordained activity of toilet-going was turned into a dreaded and terrifying ordeal. step one. fumble around in the dark for lighter, usually knocking over candle=tower in the process. step two: light candle tower. step three: use light to find keys to padlock locking the tent. step four: unlock tent and unzip door (yes, i said unzip.) step five: option a) run like all high-heaven is shooting firebolts at you, or b) freeze to death. step six: go to bathroom and then repeat steps 1-5 in reverse order.
4. we ate lots and lots of italian food
pizza, lasange (sp?), pasta etc. but most of all, GELATO. this we ate everyday and upon calculating and reflecting, realised we spent over S$50 on gelato, and ate over 40 different flavours.
we also survived on supermarket produce. supermarkets are an endangered species in italy, you can only find them if you are very quiet and observant, and then they are usually hidden underground or in some dingy building that looks like its been abandoned since the first world war. we also had strange food cravings for milk and nutella. pam had her first encounter with a peach.
me: PAM! its so good... you have to eat it. come on, try!
pam: er, *looks at peach like its dog excrement in disguise* later.
me: no, you always say that. TRY!
pam: *takes reluctant bite. clearly, images of dog excrement and various toxic waste are flashing before her eyes*
me: well?
pam: its furry.
me: peaches are furry.
pam: hamsters are furry also.
5. in italy, everyone speaks italian
i know its small-minded and all that, but WHERE ARE ALL THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE? being lost is hard enough without asking directions from people and getting even more lost, except now we are lost and in an awkward position, because the italian people are all so nice that even though we can't understand each other at all, they feel the need to explain the directions in italian UNTIL WE UNDERSTAND. which would be never. the easiest way to get out of this, is to let fake-comprehension dawn on your face, and smile, and nod, and say "si, si" alot. then they leave you alone.
pam got angry at me because when i did this she thought i understood and so after the friendly italian people walked away, she'd turn on me.
"So? where do we go?" *menacing pam-stare
"i dont know."
"WHAT! so how???"
"what did you understand from all of that?"
"er, i caught the word 'stairs' and 'bridge' (pam memorised the italian phrase book so she would know)"
and so we'd set off and amazingly, somehow got to our destination.
6. we met lots of lovely lovely people!
like the old man who walked us half an hour to help us find no. 53 viale de trastavere, only to turn around and walk all the way back to get to wherever he'd been going. and the HERO who saved a bird that was wandering around lost on the roads. and the fellow backpackers we encountered in hostels across italy and in london, who sat on dryers with me to keep warm, and laughed, and threw socks at each other while waiting for their laundry to come out. clearly, black eyed peas, all the love is happening in italy.
7. we mass-danced in the laundry room in venice
and discovered that we didnt remember the full moves of any of the dances! ): !!! okay it was dumb and lame as we grew out of the orientation hype, but it was still sad that we have already forgotten, and so we're never going to have the chance to be dumb and lame again. sob! save us, student council! where's daniel when you need him?
8. pam ran away from gypsies
which was very distracting but hysterical. imbued with the cemented (or demented) ambition to photograph a gypsy gypsy-ing so that she could prove to her colleague that not all gypsies are like esmerelda, she would approach them on tiptoe, her camera outstretched as far as her arms could stretch it in front of her, body tipped back slightly in apprehension and fear. this fear is thanks to mr tang, whose wild stories left us with the impression that we would be raped and pillaged as soon as we stepped out of the airport. anyway, pam would then press the camera trigger, and then run all the way back to me, screaming. except, if you know anything about pam, she does not run or scream. she kind of takes very small steps with amazing speed that made me think we did stand a chance against THE BUG after all, and emits a soft kind of "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" sound. her pictures were usually blurred, or featured the sky or adjacent buildings, because she'd made her dash for survival before the camera had had time to take anything coherent. FASTER THAN A CAMERA SHUTTER is our pam
9. we had backpacks
they were big, and heavy and they grew heavier with every step. our collar bones ached, our shoulders were sore, and we had trouble breathing. enough said.
10. there were queues everywhere
two hours for the Vatican Museums and over an hour each for the Galleria del Accademia and the Uffizi
there are so many other things! but whatever else happened, i must say that italy was beautiful and amazing, and that i am so glad that i went, and that we got through, somehow. i really believe that the prayers and well-wishes of everyone got us through, because so often when we were lost and at the brink of sobbing hysterically someone or something would appear that would help us get where we needed to, so thank you, and thank God.
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