 |
|
 |
|
Jan 11, 2005
What is my nationality in Italian?
Had my first Italian class today. It was such a crawl. But what really
annoyed me was how the teacher insist that my nationality is "cinese",
not Singaporean. I may not always be proud of being a singaporean, but
i hate it when people get it wrong.
When someone asks about my nationality, its Singaporean -- although i
am Chinese ethnically. What I dislike is how people think that
Singapore is part of China. Which really sucks. For a few reasons, one
being that Singapore is freaking geographically far from China.
Someone from Florence thought Singapore was like Malaysia. I had no
problems with that. At least they got the geography right. Is there no
word in italian for a Singaporean?
Singapore is a country, with its own flag, government, 'language'. No,
its not china, neither was it ever China, nor part of it.
Posted at 12:35 am by eline
Permalink
When you are in italy, expect to spend the entire morning, or even
afternoon, in line waiting to get something done.
And when you reach the front of the line, u notice that the lady
serving the counter is busy trying to fix her stapler without concern
that over 20 people have been waiting for over 30mins
And then, they tell you to go somewhere else to get your stuff done.
You wait in line for another 2 hours.
Sometimes, when you are at the front, they close the office for a few
minutes and someone emerges later with empty coffee cups. It doesn't
matter that there are people waiting.
Anyone who has to stay in Italy for over a week at a fix address needs
to report to the police -- Questura as they call it. The line to
report to the Questura may be deceptively short but really, each
person takes at least 10mins because the the officer needs to scribble
down every detail in your passport.
Posted at 12:34 am by eline
Permalink
Jan 5, 2005
Perugia is such a pretty place. At the top of the hill at least.
Although the arriving part screwed a bit, so lets not talk about it,
the rest of the place is pretty. Its like a venetian sunset cast over
little houses and churchs on the hill.
Posted at 04:58 pm by eline
Permalink
Jan 3, 2005
Today was lovely day to be out. Went to Mainz, which was great. Pity
that every shop was closed (cept for Burgerking, Macs, subway -- YES,
there is subway here!!)
The few words i have to describe Mainz is probably quaint and
charming. The thing about germany, as far as i have seen, is how the
old buildings juxtapose so nicely with the clean modern architecture.
I actually thought they blend in very nicely together.
I can't help comparing germany to italy since i just spent 3 weeks
there. However in Rome, even though I've heard how u get the mixture
of old and new buildings in Rome, i somehow don't agree with that. In
Rome, everything looks rustic. I can't really tell the newer buildings
from the older ones
Visited a 1000 yr old cathedral .-- St Martin's. Its rather saddening
to say that after having been awed by all the chiesa in Italy, there
really isn't any other cathedrals which can make me fall to my knees
and start weeping! not really.. ok maybe. Its interesting to note that
the layout/floorplan of the cathedrals here are different from the
ones in Italy. Probably some huge profound reason behind that, which I
don't know.
Chinese fast food for dinner. Well it didn't seem like fast food to
me. but that was what soongOh called it. Its always interesting to see
stuff like "singaporean noodle" or rice in the menu, and u honestly
wonder what the heck is that, u really want to order it just to bitch
about how un-singapore it is, but u resist the temptation cos u
know that its probably crap. By the way, "Nasi Goreng" is
"chinese". Ooh.. the wanton soup was good. People say that chinese
can't do without rice. I can't do without soup.
Ok, the list of basic food I can't do without:
bread
potatoes
milo
coffee
soup
chocolate
to be healthy.. fruits.
Food I always miss when I am away:
Instant noodles ( I grew up on that stuff!!)
Dim sum
Sushi
Satay
bbq chicken wings
Otah
I wished I could cook. Sighs
SoongOh says that he would like to one day attend cooking classes,
maybe knitting (????) too. I think Men these days should do that. It
makes them more attractive to the modern, independent working women
who have all forgotten how to cook. I seriously think men who can cook
is such a plus point! Gosh.. suddenly remember Kelken and his cakes.
They were good. Today, "the way to a woman's heart is through the
stomach" or something like that. Mine at least. I feel really insecure
without food and water. I have never spent a day in Italy without
packs of chocolate cakes and a bottle of water in my bag. They are
like, my emergency food! (Recall the time in Venice when we forgot
about the cakes, and how we were starving after the long Dali
exhibition and were wondering around looking for cheap food, near the
Accademia, hungry. That was scary!)
Damn! Its like 5.20am, i was suppose to have gone to bed 2 hours ago.
Posted at 05:21 am by eline
Permalink
Jan 2, 2005
"This is sooo good. Its even better than sex!"
-- SoongOh, on some bread we got from a turkish bakery
Posted at 08:11 pm by eline
Permalink
Jan 1, 2005
<Despite being down with flu and cough, new year was surprisingly fun.
I spent so much of the day in bed yesterday cos i felt tired most of the time. In the evening, Martin and his galfriend came over. The guys cooked while the gals watched. Its good that we have reached the age of role reversal!
Germans go crazy during new years. It was totally amusing to watch them. Each with at least a bottle of some alcoholic concoction in hand, screaming away with ecstatic incoherence and setting off fireworks in all directions.
The languages in my head are getting all muddled up. I say "Grazie" at a store here.
Posted at 03:53 pm by eline
Permalink
Dec 31, 2004
Its good to leave Rome for a while. I think I like germany except for the weather. I can't seem to feel my toes whenever we go out.
At the Rome Ciampino airport, I checked in my bag at slightly over 15kg. Gasps-- the miserly ryanair weight limit! But i guess they aren't too strict. It went through. And after that i saw people with 20Kg who got through anyway.
Needed to check my hand carry. That was when I remembered that I had my swiss knife with me. Argh crap. might as well try to get it through. For all the slack the italians are known for, guess they are pretty strict at the airport. I was sent to the police.
I solved the problem by chatting with a pretty decent looking stranger and he agreed to check in the knife for me. Thanks Andreas.
I feel such an ass when i compare germany and italy and bitch so much about the latter. SoongOh is like so sick of hearing me about that. But at least, i can find cough drops and ricola at the supermarket. And germans speak more english. and the english books here are cheaper.
See..I am such a bitch.
And all i wanna do, is do nothing here in Darmstadt. Its way too cold to be out wandering in the streets and getting lost. All i wanna do is watch more downloaded movies, the many i have missed in singapore. Arghh. this is like so sinful. I flew all the way here to do nothing???
I am feeling pretty sick actually. I have just progressed from sore throat to flu.
German sausages are good. Glühwein was good. But too much of it was reminiscence of non-sober moments.
Posted at 03:06 am by eline
Permalink
Dec 27, 2004
Its sad when u stay for too long in one place. Its sad when u see newly-made-friends leave. Jason left 2 days ago. So did Michael, the vegan. Then Marco left this morning. I didn't even wake up in time to say bye to him. oh well, we did say bye last night though. Arghh, can't wait to leave tomorrow.
I thought ROme is dodgey-shady. But actually, I am beginning to like ROme. You just have to get use to it. Sort of as Venn says it, absorb rome! haha. TOday was a pilgrimage day. I initially wanted to go to the vatican museum but decided against it cos it was late. I have a sore throat too and have absolutely not idea how to get lozenges. Walk into a pharmacy here and almost all the stuff in behind the counter. I don see things like Strepsils.. arghh...
Visited San Paolo in the morning. It was like wow. I mean St Peter in the Vatican is certainly grand and all that but San Paulo is majestic in a different way. Its HUGE and rather empty. The best part of it is that so few tourists go there.
Next was St Giovanni. Unlink San Paolo which looked kinda shabby outside, St Giovanni is awesome both in the exterior and interior. There were sulptures of various saints down the aisle. u have to be there to feel it. really.
Its only 8 and i feel sleepy.
Posted at 07:42 pm by eline
Permalink
Dec 26, 2004
When in Rome, drink like the Romans do...
Last night was crazy
Marco felt like going to a club and a few of us wind up going with him. It was good. But the after effects ain't that good. Think I am going to swear off hard liquor for a long time.
Venn is such a nice guy. He gave me an apple this morning cos he said that i need to detox.
He is like this all ''spiritual'' person who wants to "'ábsorb'' rome
Posted at 07:58 pm by eline
Permalink
Dec 25, 2004
Its Christmas in Rome and I have no idea what to do.
Woke up at 11am this morning, to a rainy yule'tide...
Last night was funny. Was talking to E-jay in the common room and soon we like got most of the people in the common room chatting too. Even manage to rally them to attend the Christmas Eve mass at Santa Marie Maggiore. Its a pretty church. like really. Nice on a smaller scale compared to St Peters at the Vatican. One of the guys cold said that he speaks only Geman and Russian and it became rather hilarious when i ended up being he German-English translater -- a really bad one. And speaking to him in my absolutely broken german, i was surprised that he even understood me! Oh wel, he could just be patronising. its like damn, all i learnt in german class was to talk about myself, how old i am etc etc.. it was hard to carry out a conversation, like to explain to him why i think Chinese is a difficult language to master. And just asking him if he remembered the names of one of the guys took like 10 minutes!!
Mass at Santa Marie Maggiore. It was a grand affair. The music, the choir, the crowd. Wished that it was less crowded... but we stood at the side aisle, pretty near to the altar. So we basically saw almost everything. We stayed till the 1st reading cos since eveything was in Italian it was hard to stay for the entire thing.
Don't know what to do tomorrow either. I hope that St Peter is open so that I can go climb he dome, Sounds like fun from JAson. Don't know about Monday.. maybe the Sistine? Hope to be able to do Ostia Attica on Tuesday before i leave in the night.
THats it. Maybe go wander in the streets later. By the way, I've uploaded more pictures.
MERRY chRISTMAS all!! Buona Feste!
Posted at 12:35 pm by eline
Permalink
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
Please let me know if the color combination makes the page unreadable. I am too tired of tinkering with this... leaving it in this state. Its fine to me though..
|
 |
|
