Conspermification

Eastern Europe - The One Where No One Believes Me (1ST-9TH NOV)

Monday, December 01, 2008

With hardly a few nights rest, I was back on the road again and this time to Eastern Europe. First stop: Vienna, Austria. In my previous post, I mentioned in no uncertain terms that I had had my fill of churches, museums and what nots. I guess, I had gotten a little bit tired of traveling. Hehe.. I know, kiam pah.

And so when I arrived in Vienna, all I really wanted to do is just switch off. To explore the city without really caring what the names of the sights were or what they were used for. I think Jiahui and Clement were shocked to see how absolutely and completely shut downed my brain was. In order to save money on accommodations, we arranged to bunk in with SMU people both in Vienna and Budapest (more, MUCH more on that later) and in Vienna, our host was Marcus. Now I had no idea who Marcus was, I'll admit that, and it was a little thick-skinned staying with someone I totally didn't know. But then, when we met, I realised that he was a senior from Temasek Sec and we actually had mutual friends! And so, we were able to break out into a pretty nice chat and Marcus brought us around Vienna the next day.

Now, as I said, I switched off. Hence, while Marcus did bring us on a fabulous tour of the city, I have clean forgotten the names of the stuff I saw and it really didn't matter much because Vienna didn't really feel all that different from some German cities.

Some statue of symbolizing Austria dealing pwnage to everything in the sea. I like this one because the girl was sizzling hot.

Erm... some street in Vienna.

Erm... some church in Vienna

Erm... should be the Opera house... I think. Also in Vienna.

Ah. the most Awesome Toilet in all of Vienna. This was the defining moment in Vienna for me. In the capital of Music, I went into a toilet that played classical music. Brilliant. Pure Class.

I lie. THIS was the defining moment in Vienna for me. The elephant statue was so freaking cute that it left me no choice but to surf it. But not before placing a leaf on its nose so that it could fly. (Dumbo anyone?)

The greatest thing about Eastern Europe was that Joe and Huiyi (Oktoberfest Buddies) were joining us. And so when we finally met up with them, Joe was so excited to see me that he dropped all his bags, ran towards me and jumped into my warm embrace. I do literally mean jump as in jump off the ground and wrap his slender thighs around my manly waist, jump. Because they joined us a day late, the next day we brought them around Vienna (Marcus was busy). With Jiahui leading the way, we quickly lost our way.

But we eventually got back on track and we brought the two on the same tour Marcus provided us. But of course, having switched off, I had to make up stories for any of the things that I didn't remember. For example,

I asked Joe what did he think the netting was for. To which he replied that it was to prevent pigeons from going up there. Then with my most serious voice ever I told him, "Correct! That is one of the purpose. However, the main purpose of the netting is for safety. Back in 1862, a part of the dome collapsed and killed a man right here where we are standing. Since then, they've put up the netting so that if any part of the dome drops, it'll hit the netting and bounce back up to repair itself." Basically, Joe only finds out that my story is total bull only at the last moment and Vienna was filled with stories like that for them. Giggles~ Hilarity for me. Ahhh the ability to mesh truth and lies together so seamlessly is an art.

Away to Budapest, Hungary we went after 2 nights in Vienna where we were warmly welcomed by U-jin. U-jin is by far, the greatest host in all of mankind. If aliens came to invade Earth and I had to send one person to convince them otherwise, I would send U-jin. After receiving us with Hungarian treats, he brought us back to his AWESOME apartment where we would stay for the next 3 nights.

Mere words cannot describe how AWESOME his apartment is. Its sick. Its wicked. Its pure evil. His apartment consists of a living room..

... a kitchen where the entrance to the apartment lies. But when you step in, and you look into the apartment, you notice on your right, stairs. Stairs that lead you to... a freaking LOFT where his bed is!

I mean like what the eff? He's on exchange. I'm on exchange. The difference in living conditions are ridiculous.

I'd almost hate him except for the freaking AWESOME FOOD that he cooked for us the THREE NIGHTS we were there. I said it then and I'll say it again here, U-jin, I want to have your babies.

Salivation ensues.

The next day U-jin brought us on the most awesome tour of Budapest. Now because Joe and Huiyi would only be joining us a day later, I tried my very best to dutifully remember every single story that U-jin told so that the next day, when Joe and Huiyi arrived, I'd be able to repeat the tour for them. Early the next morning, the tour started with us climbing Gellert Hill where we found an awesome slide. Giggling like a little girl I ran up to take the slide...

... heehee. Epic PHAIL!!!

Cannon SURFING!

Check out my huge CANNON!! (Wan Li Chang Niao!)

Chance Meeting with Julia from SMU!!!

Parliament Building

Basilica of St Stephen

Heroes Square where the Heroes of Budapest are honoured.

By the time the day ended, I realised I had a monumental task ahead of me. The stories that U-jin told us of Budapest contained some that were downright unbelievable. The question then is, how am I going to tell these said stories to Joe and Huiyi when my credibility (due to the Vienna debacle) were at an all time low.

To my total and utter shock, disbelief of anything that came out of my mouth began EVEN BEFORE I told any story. Beginning the day, I told them that we would be going up Gellert Hill and we could get a nice view of Budapest from there. To which Huiyi replied, "Don't bluuffff~~" Here's a picture of them enjoying the good view I was bluffing them about atop the hill we weren't actually going to climb.

If my claims of intended destinations were suspect, they obviously didn't believed me when I told them that the chain bridge...

... due to a design flaw, had to be dismantled and kept inside this tunnel during winter.

And when I told them the balls of the horse of this statue were so shiny because students always rub them for good luck, I had thought for a moment that Joe believed me because he went to rub the balls together with me.

However, in the middle of our statue genital rubbing activities, another tour guide arrived and told the same story (albeit not as well as I did) It was at this time when Joe told me that he was actually just patronizing me and that he was shocked to realise that my story was true. And to think! I worked so hard to remember all of U-jin's stories and this is what I get in return! Where is the trust!?

My stay in Budapest ended at Buda Castle...

... and a beautiful view of Budapest by night.

And we left Budapest early the next morning for Prague, Czech Republic. With Huiyi leading the way we were worried we would get lost...

... but we didn't and we soon had sight of our destination, Prague Castle (tallest building in the distance) which we would reach after we crossed Charles' Bridge (on the left).

At the gates of Prague Castle

A Cathedral within the Castle grounds

By the time we decided to descend Prague Castle, the sun had begun to set. It wasn't that we spent a lot of time up there but the days are getting shorter in Europe and it becomes dark around 5pm as opposed to the 9pm when I had just arrived.

Prague in the even time

Old Town Square

Prague was a truly beautiful city and I enjoyed just doing nothing there. The two days we spent there was basically just us wandering around until meal times and stopping for drinks every once in a while...

... drinking what is supposed to be some of the best beers in the world.

Alas all good things must come to an end and we had to bid Joe and Huiss fare thee well as we were heading to Krakow, Poland. By this time, Joe and I had become close like lovers...

... and he really didn't want to let me leave...

... nonetheless on the night train we boarded and to Krakow we went. Thankfully I would see Joe again in Amsterdam.

We would only spend a day in Krakow because from all reports, Polish cities were uninteresting. It didn't help that we had no guide in Krakow nor even a rough itinerary. Expecting little by way of excitement from the city, I decided we had to create our own fun. And so, the night before in Prague, I read up on the many silly legends related to Krakow and told Jiahui and Clement the stories through out our time in Krakow. Unfortunately, Krakow was small. SO small that we had seen 40% of the sights before 10am. By accident.

Before long, I had related the story of how the two towers of the Church came to be of different heights. The story of the Trumpeter. And the Legend of the Pigeons of Krakow.

All these stories were related to the church and I was almost out of stories to tell with only 1 story left before lunch time. Just beside the Church was the Cloth Hall...

... the oldest departmental store in the world. The Cloth Hall was situated right beside the Church in the town square and so basically, by lunch time, all that was left to see in Krakow, was the Wawel castle atop Wawel Hill and the one story of the Dragon of Krakow.

Making our way to Wawel Castle, a "grueling" 5 min walk, we were shocked to realise that we had reached the castle. The shock came on two levels, first, this is the Castle???????

We were not impressed. Secondly, this meant we had nothing left to see in Krakow, no more stories since the Dragon of Krakow story was about the Dragon living in the hill on which the "castle" was built upon, and it was barely 2pm. All that was left for us to do was to explore the castle and to visit the fire breathing dragon statue.

Exploring the Castle, the clock bells rung and Jiahui, thoroughly amazed, exclaimed, "got CROCK!" Capturing this precise moment by pure luck on camera, Jiahui's bimboticness is forever immortalized.

Basically, the fire breathing dragon statue was the highlight of my stay in Krakow and I was excited from the very beginning about the prospect of seeing the fire breathing dragon statue. I mean how cool is that!? A fire breathing statue! And I was excitedly telling Clement and Jiahui about how we need to catch a picture of us and the dragon spewing fire. As it turns out, the two of them actually didn't believe me when I told them about the fire breathing dragon and they were only patronizing me! (Just like Joseph!)

And so when the statue...

... spewed flames, as was the cloak of disbelief finally shed.

Eastern Europe. The one where no one believes me.

Things on my mind:
Passing my exams
Mayday's new album
GERGER IS COMING SOON!!!
BOoOOOooBies!

Sprouting Nonsense Since 1984 {5:26 am}