View from my apartment

Realised I left out a lot of information about my Europe trip after going through the digital footprints on my laptop. Particularly fish and chips from North Sea Fish near Passfield Hall, with vinegar instead of mayonnaise. My last couple of days in Europe were spent getting wasted every night with Hert and Kyle, two American soldiers I met in Paris who really changed my perspective on wars. I can never watch another war flick or read news about wars the same way again.

The previous posts are a year late and I’m currently in Beijing embarking on the next chapter of my life. Snow cheers me up in these negative temperatures.

Hopped onto the Eurostar from Paris to London in 2 hours! The train traveled so fast it made my ears pop! Finally, people who speak English! I was putting up at the London School of Economics, Passfield Hall. Very, very clean and cosy rooms with a fantastic spread of an English breakfast! We’re talking about sausages, scrambled eggs, baked tomatoes, toast and more. One can’t live on cold cuts and croissants everyday, can you?

Les Misérables

Caught the infamous Les Misérables, cheapest seats in the house – Upper Circle £15.00. I recall sitting at the last row of the theatre, the seats were so crammed (I’m about 5′2″ by the way). It was my first time watching a musical. A Korean guy who didn’t speak much English sat next to me. He was a cycling traveler, the first I’ve ever met, and he wore a thin racer costume in the middle of winter.

Transportation is crazy expensive! I was glad I got the London Pass with Travel – “Unlimited journeys on all London Underground, Buses, Trams, Docklands Light Rail and Over-ground Trains within zones 1 – 6, saves you ALOT of money.

Rub in one direction

I had an interesting experience at the London Brass Rubbing Centre taking an elevator down the Crypt and creating my own Christmas art.

The Chelsea FC Stadium tour was really enjoyable with an engaging guide cracking jokes and keeping the kids entertained. Funny, though not surprising, that I was the only girl at the Chelsea FC Stadium Tour, the participants were fathers with their sons and dudes in a group. By the way, I’m not biased towards Chelsea or anything, it came free with the London Pass.

Not in the mood to blog about visiting Harrods, Selfridges, Camden Market or the likes. Grab a free copy of Visit London and TimeOut London instead.

Sorry if I come across as being insensitive about the catastrophic potentials of a flood but I was really curious when I saw the news on the ‘deepest flood in Venice in 22 years’ and hoped to experience the acqua alta (high water) for myself.

Rainy day

Ryota-san warned me in Florence that vino brulé tastes bad but when I was alone in Venice, I bought myself a cup and yuck!

Hot red wine

I do regret that I didn’t try any gelato or macaroons though. I thought since we have them in Singapore, why not save that money for other things instead. My friends gave me a trashing when I got home claiming I’ve missed out big time and that they taste a million times better in Europe.

Hopped on to the Eurail to Florence from Rome and stayed at Hotel Domus Florentiae. I made a few hotel reservations via venere.com and they’re reliable. The hotel is actually very near Santa Maria Novella (SMN) station but somehow, I walked about in circles as I tried to follow the directions provided by the hotel and it took me awhile to find it, tucked away inconspicuously.

Hotel Domus Florentiae

Lovely way to start the day

Bed and breakfast cost me 113.28 EUR for 2 nights. Apart from a very dark corridor that smelled a little funky and a slightly mouldy mirror, this is a very quaint hotel with clean sheets, decent breakfast and free wifi. There was a vintage wardrobe that came with an antique key that I really liked, and a balcony. I have a thing for balconies because I don’t have one at home (and also because you can smoke there).

Spizzico and Chinese takeout

I couldn’t resist getting some Chinese takeout after 5 days of cold cuts, croissants, pizzas and pasta. If you’re wondering – yes, Spizzico is good and I haven’t had a pizza in Italy that’s not delicious, and no, I didn’t finish everything for dinner. I probably reached the hotel around 7pm, twittered and checked my mail on my trusty iPod Touch, polished off the Chinese takeout and half a pizza, watched some MTV and news in Italian, went to bed, woke up in the wee hours and finished the other half of the pizza. Yes, it was cold. No, I didn’t have a microwave or oven to heat it up. Went back to sleep.

Morning. Hopped on the Eurail again, Firenze SMN to Pisa Centrale. Leaning tower, checked.

Leaning tower of Pisa

Things got more interesting from there on. There was a strike or something on my way back to the Pisa Centrale. I think some of the locals felt irritated when our bus got caught in the traffic but I thought it was rather exciting because we don’t have strikes or riots in Singapore.

Strike in Pisa

While waiting for the train back to Florence, Yukari approached me to help take a photo of her and we became friends on the train. She thought I was Japanese which was quite funny that she couldn’t tell that I’m not. We communicated with what little Japanese I spoke and with the help of her translator. Yukari was on a working holiday in Paris and came to Italy for a short holiday. She was living in a hostel where she got to know Ryota and Kojima. Ryota was a fugu chef who came to learn Tuscan cuisine and Kojima was on his grad trip.

Yukari and Ryota at Michelangelo

Carousel

We walked around till late and I had my first good meal at a restaurant with my new friends. Not sure if it was a Christmas market but there were people dining at this carousel-like structure and there were booths selling wooden toys, fresh herbs and candies. It was about midnight when they walked me back to my hotel and I realised it wasn’t so scary to walk about at night after all.

Armed with a map of Rome that Marcel gave me (I think that’s his name), an umbrella and an empty stomach, I headed for the Colosseum with much excitement to watch the sun rise behind the ancient gladiators’ arena. Did you sense something amiss with the statement? It didn’t occur to me that I wasn’t gonna catch any sunrise because it was raining that morning. I also didn’t know how far it was to walk from Yes Hotel to the Colosseum. Nonetheless, the Colosseum looked beautiful from the outside when lit up. A common consensus though, would be that it’s a lot smaller than imagined, just like Mona Lisa.

The Colosseum

Cobbled pavement

Famished, I took the Metropolitana from Colosseo to Termini to return to Yes Hotel for breakfast. The Rome metro system is straightforward and convenient. What’s interesting is that you could also buy tickets from newsstands and tabacchis (places that sell cigarettes) other than from the vending machines.

Bigletto

Lots of graffiti at the stations and even on the trains but I felt they were more art than vandalism and gave lots of character.

Colosseo

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re1kUWeubLE]

Something I learnt: breakfast is usually cheaper and better outside than in hotels unless it comes free with your stay, which in that case, stuff yourself silly so you can last longer and spend less money on food. I also nicked some crackers just in case I get stuck on a train again.

Breakfast at Yes Hotel

Next stop, Vatican City!

Musei Vaticani

Forget about the audio guide unless you’re an Art major or gonna stay the entire day there because that place is HUUUGE and you’re not gonna cover much if you take your time to smell the roses. Shortcut: do some homework on the art before going so you know what to look for and what you’re looking at. I walked into this room full of people staring up, my eyes swept across the ceiling and found the infamous Creation of Adam by Michelangelo.

Sistine Chapel

I recorded a bunch of short video clips (which I’m not going to upload) on my way up the St. Peter’s Basilica. I never really watched them until now and it’s funny to hear what I said:

“Hello, I’m at the St. Peter’s Basilica and there’s no one else except me climbing the stairs up [sic] 124meters. See you up there!”

“I’m still climbing!”

“Are we there yet?”

“Looks like different steps. [sic] Guess I must be reaching…” Nope.

“Here we go again…”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnoyJZxddQs]

Tiny, winding steps

It gets narrower and narrower as you climb and it starts to curve at the dome. It was tiring and you could probably hear me breathing heavily in the background but the view at the top was priceless. I always prefer stairs to lifts when visiting places.

Mr. Sun knocks off early in winter and it was dark by the time I walked to and arrived at the Spanish Steps.

Atop the Spanish Steps

I remember reading in Frommer’s or somewhere: “Legend says that if you toss a coin into the fountain over your shoulder, you will one day return to the eternal city,” and felt really disappointed when I realised I’d forgotten to do so. I know it’s really from the 1954 film, Three Coins in the Fountain, but it’s still a nice thought and I like to indulge in a bit of fantasy and make-believe stuff every now and again, like visiting the Juliet’s balcony in Verona.

I really wanted to visit the Pantheon after watching a documentary on the history and architectural finesse but ended up walking in the wrong direction to the National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II instead. By then, my legs could barely carry me and my poor rain-soaked feet were crying. Took a bus back to the hotel and ended my adventures in Rome with wrinkled toes.

Useful links:

http://www.rome.info/

http://www.vatican.va/

Roma Termini

I was so relieved when I saw the sign Roma Termini. Didn’t matter if it was slightly wet that morning, I followed the directions and found myself at Yes Hotel. The lift was broken so we had to use another one located at the back of the hotel which turned out to be a vintage elevator, I like! Here’s a really bad video of  the machina in action (Mr Tatonka and I, tugging a foldable trolley thingy I bought in Rome to help me with my hand carry):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsvGDIyro_I]

My first meal was at Trattoria I Leoni d’Abruzzo. The staff at Yes Hotel gave me a name card to this trattoria because I was absolutely famished but most places weren’t ready to serve lunch as I arrived 10-ish (I think). They probably have some referral thing going on and you get a discount if you turn up with the name card that has Yes Hotel and -10% Discount stamped on it. I lost the receipt and can’t recall how much my meal cost but I vaguely remember that the food was average.

Trattoria I Leoni d'Abruzzo

Sitting in a restaurant and swaying side to side in my head after 20 hours of train. – Me, via iPod Touch

I booked Yes Hotel through their website and it had the best directions to guide me from Termini Station to their hotel. I wasn’t really on a rough-it-out, stay-in-guesthouses kinda backpacking trip previously and spent 125.90 EUR for two nights. Will definitely recommend this hotel if you’re not on a backpacker’s budget for the excellent location, friendly staff and cozy rooms.

Can’t exactly recall what I did on my first day in Rome but thanks to digitally dated photos, I reckon I must have visited the supermarket.

Supermercato

Meat section

After exploring the area near my hotel, fatigue and first-timer’s-jitters of travelling alone when night falls (awfully early) ushered me to a nearby internet cafe where I e-mailed my friends and checked what time Mr Sun’s getting up the next day so I could catch him at the Colosseum.

“This is it,” I thought to myself as I stepped through the customs at Changi International Airport after waving goodbye to my teary-eyed family and friends. Backpacking isn’t common in Singapore, not to mention alone. It was a blasphemous decision to everyone I knew. When I belted up on the plane and felt the familiar vibrations of a take-off, I thought, “Fuck, this is it. THIS-IS-IT. There’s no turning back now.”

Transit at Amsterdam. They wanted to check my hotel reservations, I left everything in my check-in luggage – a 60 litre backpack I named Mr Tatonka. Lucky I had my iPod Touch on me with my e-mail receipts stored, they let me through. It was cold and quiet in Schipol Airport. My cheery yellow cotton shawl did little to save me in T-shirt and jeans during the 2-hour transit. Time crawled.

Finally, Paris, Charles De Gaulle (CDG). A smile peeked through the gloom as I stepped out of the airport. Paris probably has one of the most complicated train system by far. Doesn’t help that I don’t speak French. I took my first train to Gare Paris-Bercy where my next train heads to Rome in the evening. Noted that EUR to SGD was 1.898 and I donated more than I should dropping what I thought were shillings to a not-very-friendly man playing an accordion.

Paris - Bercy

First meal, Bercy Cafe on 118 Rue De Bercy where I ordered one of the set menus at 18.30 Euros. I vaguely recall reading filet on the menu which I mistook for fillet. Slightly surprised when I received steak instead of fish but I kept quiet.

Pate de Campagne

Formule E/P

Time: 1248hours. My initial plan was to explore Paris for a bit before the night train to Rome but the complexity of the Paris subway threw me off, even though there was absolutely nothing to see around Gare de Lyon. I didn’t know how to get to Champs Elysee or know how long it’d take me. Being the virgin backpacker I was, I have to admit that I was afraid of hiccups.

Gare de Lyon

This is the waiting area on the second level of Gare de Lyon. Now that I look at the Eurail timetable again, I realised there are only morning trains and night trains. There wasn’t a single passenger except me for a long time until a man arrived and slept across a couple of seats. Five more hours to go. The silence, the emptiness, the waiting and the loneliness was driving me crazy! With my backpack strapped to one of my arms, I set my alarm clock and tried to sleep. It got colder, I pulled over another sweater and continued to force myself to sleep.

Soup machine

More and more people gathered at the train station as I drifted in and out of sleep. I think I drank two cups of tomato soup from this vending machine in between. I followed the crowd due for Roma Termini at 1859 to the trains and got out of the station, it was so much colder outside and a wind was blowing. As much as I’m afraid of the cold, I like it and it got me all excited.

I shared the cabin with a quaint, old Italian lady whose name is Emi, if I recall correctly. I cannot remember her age, probably 70. I remember that she loves cats and she’s got adorable grandchildren, whose photos she showed to me on her mobile phone. Emi was full of vigour for her age and she stole quite a few cigarette breaks during our ride to Rome. She couldn’t speak English and I didn’t understand Italian so our conversations didn’t get us very far. She taught me to be careful and locked the cabin before we went to bed.

Non Smoker T3 Lady Upper

Emi

Sleeping on the upper bunk, there wasn’t any space for me to sit upright. It was dark outside. I was supposed to arrive at 0950 but the train was retardo (delayed). I got hungry. That meal at Paris Bercy was the only meal I had 24 hours ago. I didn’t buy dinner on the train when they offered because it was like 25 Euros and I thought no way am I gonna pay that sorta money for train food. I nibbled on my only pack of crackers that my sis insisted I bring for the trip and washed it down with the complimentary sparkling water. I don’t think breakfast was on the menu but they served us coffee and buns. I gobbled them up.

Breakfast for Emi and I

After about 20 hours on the train and hours of forced sleep, I finally got to Rome.

Someone came to pick Emi at the station, I think it was her son. I wonder how she’s doing now.

Non Smoker T3 Lady Upper