* Tina's adventures in Prague or rather misadventures

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Back to Basics with Christina Aguilera!!!
The concert started close to 90 mins late so elise and I had to keep ourselves entertained with making funny faces at the camera..

the performance was in a class of it's own: crazy props and back drops, dancers, live bands and chrsitina's powerful renditions of old and new favorites coupled with jaw dropping costumes..u'll never get anything like this in singapore

after the concert we both bought christina aguilera t-shirts!!!!! check out elise's nicole richie impersonation.. priceless!!!!

not quite the happy gelato stained postcard.
--8:25 AM--

French connection!

the celebration continues..viva la Paris!

what was suppose to happen: get yelled at by a rude french guy

what did happen: got yelled at by a crazy singaporean

What was suppose to happen: get snubbed by a snooty waiter at a restaurant

what did happen: got snubbed by gerald at the restaurant

what was suppose to happen: Do tons of shopping

what did happen: help gerald carry tons of shopping

what was suppose to happen: find peace at notre dame

what did happen: pissed gerald off at the notre dame

starting to see a pattern yet?

part deux

Bisous mes amis!

not quite the happy gelato stained postcard.
--7:40 AM--

Turning twenty-one...

the best birthday ever started with Elise doing what I've christened the 'happy dance'(a cross between the hokey pokey and needing to pee but it was great- thanks babe!) in our room at 0000hrs--a day after i returned from barcelona(sponsored by mum &dad)!..
i returned from my morning class to find 2 packages waiting for me in the mailbox..one from Mehga who sent me episodes of grey's, house, scrubs and more and a card from my oldest best friend..sweet Elise returned from her class to surprised me with a bouquet of flowers to bring me on my birthday date to movies (little miss sunshine) and denise waited for me at the door making it a threesome..After the movies it was paaarrrttty time at the swedish nation2nation... i didn't want to make a big deal out of my birthday but elise,denise and the rest of the gang made it a point for me to have the best birthday ever... the night was a blur of kisses, alcohol, lap dances, more kisses,dancing and enough great pictures and memories to last me a lifetime..nuff' said...a big thank you goes out to Elise, Denise, Marco, laraine, Irina, Jay, Linda & the 21 guys where-ever you are for giving this un-deserving girl the best 21st she would wish for...

not quite the happy gelato stained postcard.
--7:28 AM--

Thursday, November 23, 2006

blogger took forever to load my pictures and it just totally put me off blogging.. until i downloaded picasa... enjoy

MeEncanta Barcelona!!!!!

Hola mis amigas.. i glad to announce that i have found my dream city... Barcelona has everything anyone would want in a city--shopping, beautiful beaches, mountains, shopping, great food, museums, music playing 24/7, fascinating culture and history, jaw-dropping works of architecture and --if u didn't catch it the first 2 times, yes-Shopping! I swear, everytime i lose my way and veer off onto some unknown street i somehow or rather find myself in a Zara or Mango.. and of course when did eventually find my way around the city i realised i perpetually had my jaw-hanging open, gasping in awe of works of Gaudi, a myraid of modernist buildings, the view of the mountians from the beach and the beach from the mountains

...but walking in circles half the time meant that i only got to do like 60% of the recommended list, and even that gave me more than enough pictures to test the limits of my camera's memory... brace yourself for dazzling colors & intense imagery that is Barcelona!

day 1: Found my way to La Rambla at 5:30 even though i left the hostel at 3pm (and it's only 15 mins away)..i resisted entering the 1st Zara and mango i saw but with each passing store getting bigger and grander i couldn't help popping into a few stores..and pretty soon it was nightfall, La Rambla was well rumbling with life- an animal market, a flower district, a central market, a theater and the heaps and heaps of tourist shops- full of americans as usual... with the first english words i heard since my hostel reception being :"those are some FatAss chickens!!"

.. moving along..A stroll along la Rambla leads to the

and even there you'll find one of the largest shopping complexes in barcelonaMaremagnum.. i had little time to shop though..having signed up for tapas&flamenco night with the hostel!

After flamenco night, i went back to the hostel to find my dormates have arrived! 3 US students on exchange in madrid and 2 mexicans travelling europe... we swap stories of Europe, US, mexico & singapore till around 2am..

Day2: Gaudi Gaudi Gaudi

Followed the footprints left by the geniuses of the modernistic era; inspried by nature their feats of using a combination of glass,ceramics and stone to create entire buildings that were works of art both inside and out are unparalleled to anything we have today..the best buildings were created by Senor-'straight-lines-are-evil-to-me'-Gaudi but even non-Gaudi ones were spetacular... the trail starts with Gaudi's best: Casa balto! (exterior, interior, roof)

Casa mila (below)

y don't people get that u want a recognizable picture of me & sculpture not just a picture of me and half a block of something... bah! Casa lleo(below) took me ages to find because 1) it was across the road from my hostel and 2) it was above cartier (eyes on diamonds instead) these buildings below are the non Gaudi: not so bad eh?

barcelona is also probably the few places on earth where you wouldn't be able to between differentiate an opera house (palac de musica de catayluna) and a hospital (first 5 hospital next 4 opera house) the opera house is my favorite place! and it'a interior is beyond words! only accessible by guided tours -- no photos allowed though

The night was for romance: glittering lights atop many of barcelona's hills..

Day 3 i spent on the sprawling, golden and surprisingly clean beaches (metro station 100 m from the beach!) ..did nothing but laze around, reading my cosmo and watching nude ~~old~~ mature people on the beach..when my supply of mini dunkin' donuts ran out.. i set off to explore the gothic quarter...

sun, sand, sea, mountains, art, shopping, cool weather, great parties... what more could a ~~gal~~ woman ask for...i*heart*barcelona

not quite the happy gelato stained postcard.
--6:34 AM--

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Hun-gary for more...
i'll shorthand my adventures and let the photos do the talking...
Day1: Buda side: castle.church.lookout pt-met serena for a night out at an irish pub with a live band! accomplice to a pocketing of a heiniken beer glass- u'll just have this weird urge to steal once something has been stolen from you..
Day 2: Pest side: st stephen's.operahouse.central market. hotchocolate.parliment.posing for pictures*smiles*-spent my evening @ e operaert-galakoncert: a smorgasbord of opera,symphony, ballet, choir and traditionary hungarian dance for like S$8 which went on for close to 3 hours
Day3: TerrorHaza: house of terror, historial museum dedicated to the victims of the Nazi and communist regime-visited serena's flat- Hungarian goulash & Arsenal v. Liverpool match ( Liverpool got thrashed-duh!- 3 to nada) -window shopping at westend. trying to stuff traditional hungarian pancakes into my already well-fed tummy-
Day 4: MAd rush to the central market to buy souvieners for mum&dad and mouth watering baked goodies..hungarians seem to like anything starting with chocolate or carmel, coated with chocolate,filled with chocolate and topped off with a chocolate glaze...which is fine by me anyday!- 8 hour bus ride to prague (booooooo)

As u possibly can tell by now.. I abso-fuckinglutly love Budapest.. it's buda-ful!

Below we have the skyline of pest with the parliment building featuring as the star attraction..

across the famous danube river is Buda side feat. BudaCastle where you would find

it's iconic lookout point! seems like something out of a fairytale

and beside that, St Matthais church (i think)

Guess who's Posing in front of Buda castle: gt's rendition of elise (see karlovy vary)

back to pest for St. Stephen's basilica!

At this point my camera ran out of batteries... but gerald's schoolmates were over at budapest too and we took hundreds of crazy pictures around parliment, along the danube river, in front of zara... (i swear i still hear montse cheerful scream for 'zara!' ringing in my ears ) and later a couple of shots with serena at the westend mall-or as the hungarian like to say the largest shopping mall in central europe-..i'll try to post them or steal them off gerald's blog... overall it was fanatasic destination city(wayyyyyy better than prague- serena u should trust me on this) can't wait to visit it again.. tt's if i can endure another 8 hour bus ride...

next weekend: Barcelona! (yes montse! Barcelonaaaaaaaaaaa!)

out of point comment: "tina" is a name of a magazine in Hungary and there was this newspaer stand plastered with tinatinatinatinatina.. would have loved to get a picture...

Labels: Travel

not quite the happy gelato stained postcard.
--6:18 AM--

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
my first snow! doesn't it look like something off a christmas card?

but it's only just past Halloween

The castle in Cesky krumlov-a lil' czech town

& its protector: Mr Grizzly Bear

My first snow storm...

Look at the glamour puss pose

Yay snow!

not quite the happy gelato stained postcard.
--5:20 AM--

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Miserable*
My beloved bag got stolen and in it, my hot pink AE wallet and my Nokia 6233. Won't be blogging until i feel better...

In loving memory of black lecoq bag:

25th September 2006

2nd November 2006

You served me well, i hardly knew thee.

God, grant me the strenght and serenity to accept the things i cannot change,

the courage to change the things i can

and the wisdom to know the difference.

not quite the happy gelato stained postcard.
--12:26 AM--

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Before sunrise...

First of all, let me just say a quick Hola! to Montse..and clarify i would have been in Barcelona on the 26 of oct if --Gerald hadn't told me u may not be going --on the day that i wanted to book my flight.. the scheming bitch got me to accompany him to graz and melk instead haha

and HEya to Adelyn! who's "waiting to hear about the weirdo who picked me up on the way to graz!" and who suggested that maybe i shld have gone off with him and left gerald alone (i concur)... and duly told me that my experience was soo "before sunrise" --how cool is that!

To the uninitiated (which included me before i googled it): Before Sunrise is a passionate and intelligent romance between a young American Jesse/Ethan Hawke and a French student Celine/Julie Deply. A chance encounter on the train to Vienna (i was on a train to graz n tt's in austria too!) incites intrigue and Jesse provocatively suggests that Celine postpones her return to ~~France~~ (graz) and embark instead on a spontaneous expedition to Vienna. In the course of their ~~14-hour~~ (2hour) relationship, the two share in their love for the unrehearsed and their appreciation for the unexpected as they explore in a powerful meeting of hearts and minds. Dawn breaks. Sad in silence, they make their way to the station. As they bid each other farewell .. (alright.. that part didn't happen for me..but it could have)

Reality check: the guy was no ethan hawke and i'm definately not half as beautiful as Julie but it really did happen to me! Last friday, on my train ride to graz to meet gerald.. a guy got on the train one stop after the czech border and into my empty carriage where i was studying for my finance test.. he asked me about my notes and we started talking--started with the usual..i'm from singapore.. he from vienna but working as a researcher in this math institute in the countryside solving algorithms and programming the computer to do the same (god he's a genius!-soo john nash) ..we carried on about singapore politics (he has read/heard alot about singapore) about austria's history, the EU, about life in a small town (no TV or cinema or shopping(!!) can u imagine?!) , about the breath-taking scenery in the austrian countryside..n then it started getting weird......he said today the scenery was exceptionally beautiful and he thinks it because---i cut him off.. 'look at the cows!' i say...''yes cows, aren't they cute' he says.. i veer off to talk about farm life...he trys the line a few times more-- though not without me finishing his sentences with something else..once with me getting desperate and blurting out " is this your stop?" (boy i'm making this difficult-aint' I?) until-- until he just said No..no..no it's cos i really like you! you're beautiful! (i was definately not! it was a 6am train- no makeup/messy hair/eek)... awkward silence and his arm is around me shit... 'how could you, i've only known you for 2 hours ?' "and i'm exchange prague.. due back in January" "that's not a problem, i could visit" he said "but i need to know who's the guy you're meeting in Graz (gerald)., is he your boyfriend?"

After some not so quick calculative thinking i gave an unconvincing "yes" (while at the back of my mind i was thinking--gt--please,not in this lifetime).. and then he asked the unthinkable:" what did that guy do to make you love him so?" -still not believing i said yes- "erm..cos' he's nice" ..."He's a lucky man" "erm..right" I've got goosebumps all over and i try to focus all my interest on the passing meadows..i catch glimpses of him looking at me with sad eyes... "i'm sorry" i say..." I'll never meet another girl like you" (i swear i'm not making this up) " There will be others".. "but they won't be you"..." tt's sweet..sorry again"..more scenery gazing and the longest 30minutes of my life later.. it was -finally- his stop.. i said my goodbyes..and breathe a sigh of relief when he left..then i looked in the mirror (shit i looked ugly.. what the hell is this guy thinking)..for the next 2 hours i let my mind wander on silly little fanatasies..what if i had said no..but what was i going to do.. alight at his stop, have a whirlwind romance and end up living in the country- unthinkable-how did it end in before sunrise anyways?...oh well, so i did make it to graz:

The below street sign is funny: cos' that exactly how we were standing (me in a knee-length skirt too) we decided to interpret the sign as no black people allowed and walked on..
Above:GT was suppose to be doing the juliet balcony scene Above: City hall
Modern architecture in Graz

And to the largest abbey in Europe in Melk, austria

not quite the happy gelato stained postcard.
--7:15 AM--