Late night thoughts

Its almost 5am and I am not asleep yet. There’s a lot of stuff going through my brain now. Missing the Ultimate scene in Europe. Missing the weather. Thinking about the big mess of choosing a club in Singapore. And how to get a team for Sing Opens. At the back of all these there is also some random thoughts. Actually not some. Lots. Things I can’t forget. Its 5am! Gosh. I am still on European time. Something in me doesn’t want to revert back to Singapore time. Sigh.

Back to training

Nothing to say about it. Except that it was hot. Boiling hot. 

I want blue skys with sub-26 temperatures. Not blue skys, rocketing humidity and a 30 deg day. 

Kill me someone.

Commercialisation

I am astonished by the amount of shopping malls sprouting around Singapore. Its incredible, just along Orchard Road alone, there are 2 shopping malls, work in progress, and another couple more undergoing renovation. How much more consumer power should be bestowed onto us? How much more money should we be expected to pour into materialistic goods. Don’t get me wrong, I am personally a big fan of shopping. But what happened to the open green spaces, the garden city. Sorry, you can sell me more stuff, I am welcome to that, but not at the expense of parks, grass, greenery, plant life/whatever that contains chlorophyll. 

I have gotten too used to those nicely manicured Tirolean houses with their pretty flowerpots hanging over their windowsills. And a nice river flowing through the city. And mountains within a 30min walk from my place. I miss the crisp mountain air, and blue skies, the lack of high-rise buildings. The quiet life, the lack of traffic and cars. Take me away from the hustle and bustle and bring me back the peace. 

Oh gosh and that stupid television present on buses, that silly TVMobile, its driving me crazy. I want to shut it off. Its not fair for them to inflict that moronic speaking coloured box on all the passengers just because it is a good marketing/revenue tool.

Its in the past

I am going to slowly recount the last few days in Europe. Lets begin with my departure. After a late night out with my Ultimate team, I finally dragged myself off to bed. I remember the long lonely dark bike ride back home to my house. And so tempting to just cry. All I held on to was the fact that I promised that I will be back again, and I must come back, and that was just temporary, just a break in time from my life in Europe. So I finished packing the last bits of my stuff and went to bed. 

Woke up really early the next morning, not wanting to rush through all the last minute packing and the last minute administration with my Studentenheim. With half an hr to spare before the airport transfer came, I started dragging all my luggage downstairs, 3 flights of stairs. Unknown to me, my suitcase already weighed 35kg. And in addition to the suitcase, I had a soft bag filled with my thermarest and sleeping bag and miscellaneous stuff, and a big 30kg capacity ikea box. For hand carry, I had my 2 crumpler bags, one stuffed full with discs, the other one holding my precious laptop and electronics. And then I had my 35l backpack, filled with ALL my books/ papers/ assignments, basically, heavy stuff. If you do the math, I nad 2.8kg of discs, + 35kg suitcase + 8kg soft bag + 20kg ikea box + 5kg laptop/electronics + 20kg backpack = 90.8kg. Wow. Talk about excess baggage. And don’t forget that I already shipped back 18kg of stuff back before I left on my 3 week trip. So yah. I was loaded. 

I made it to the airport, not without difficulty dragging my baggage downstairs and into the airport transfer van and everything. At the airport, I got stalled at check-in, lady said, max 30kg, and besides your suitcase is 35kg and the max per suitcase is 32kg. I was like… OH crap. And how much did excess baggage cost? 30 euros per kg. My gosh. So me, with my 6 pieces of luggage, had to repack everything. 1st was removing stuff from my suitcase, so I could go under the 32kg per piece limit. That done, I checked it in. And I begged them to just let me check-in the 8kg soft bag too. After all, 8kg isn’t that much. Its just a small kid, or a beer belly. And besides I weight less than the average passenger. But NO, silly french people at the counter said no. I wanted to just put the suitcase onto the conveyer to weigh it, and they sent it in, without my acknowledgment. And THEN they told me, pay up, or the baggage will remain on standby and won’t board the plane and YOU won’t board the plane. I was like OH SHIT. How pleasant of them to make me pay exorbitant prices without my consent. But what can I do right? They sent it in already, and they probably will refuse to take it out. So i paid up. 240 euros in total. I could have bought everything inside, again. Sigh. So that was the beginning of baggage troubles. 

And so, I still have my big IKEA box left. With luck, I had plenty of time to spare, so I went to the post office. The Deutschpost, for good reason, is cheaper than Österreichpost, which was really nice. So I packed and taped up the box. Only to weigh it and get told that it was 22kg, and the limit of overseas packages was 20kg. I got promptly handed a pen knife, and unfortunately had to reopen my box and remove some stuff. Which, come to think of now, am glad, coz I would not have had my cleats and birkenstocks for another week, which would have been a pain, since I could not play Ultimate without cleats. So unpack repack untape retape. Finally after a long time, I had my package sent on the way home. 

Boarded the plane to Amsterdam, no problems. I got really hungry though, since I did not have anything to eat since breakfast at 8am, and it was already 5pm. Yupz. Landed in Amsterdam with a hole burning in my stomach, and just DYING to get onto the next plane, coz I will be served proper food on that plane. Then came the bomb. At immigration. I went to the counter, said Hello! (not too cheery coz of fatigue and hunger) Mr Grumpy-stuck-at-the-counter-for-life took a look at my passport and said, so you are flying from Germany, I said Er yah? I was not expecting any questions at all, just for them to wave me through as usual. And then he said the most outrageous thing ever: What did you do to your passport? Puzzled me realized what was going on and I replied Nothing, I didn’t do anything, its fine. And Mr Grumpy-and-racially-biased called a colleague over and I got brought to the immigration office, and they said they had to do additional checks on my passport. Which has gone through immigration in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Austria, all without any problems. So I was left standing at the office for 20 minutes with a heavy backpack. I was RAGING. And when asked why my passport was so suspicious, they couldn’t reply me. And just printed me some stupid By this law you have to get your passport checked paper. Bullshit. But obviously, while my passport was with them, I held my tongue, knowing every thing I said might be used against me in court. So I held my silence. After a LONG time, they get a call, and they said there was nothing wrong with my passport. I was like AH HA! Stupid immigration officers. So, me proven innocent, said to those morons: I seriously think you have a racial discrimination problem, because its not the 1st time I have been stopped. And this bald headed butt monkey answers: Then I think there is something wrong with your documents. WOAH. I was FUMING then. I then told him, theres NOTHING wrong, they just said so, and he gave me this smug look. If the dutch treated asians in that way, I am so not surprised they got kicked out of Indonesia. 

So went through immigration and after long long wait in transition, finally got onto the plane. I had a window seat, and this big guy comes to sit next to me. I was thinking… crap, big snoring guy. Oh dear. I probably want to knock myself out and sleep the whole trip then. But sleep didn’t come very fast. He was reading an English book, and took the USA Today, so I thought he was American. And me being the nerd, kinda started reading his paper over his shoulder. There was Obama on the paper, and that was kinda interesting. And this big guy, was nice enough to offer me the paper after he was done (which didn’t take that long). So I read the USA Today, and when I was done, somehow we started talking. And he turned out to be a really well mannered guy, Portuguese, not American. And lawyer, and… surfer dude!  I though I would have to go through an unbearable flight, but he was a really interesting guy to talk to! So I got much less sleep than I expected. Even though I took a shot of Bailey’s on the plane. We exchanged contacts after the flight, and its nice to know I have one more friend in Portugal! =)

Got off, retrieved luggage, and then there was me, back down to earth. The completion of a journey I never imagined I could complete on my own. An experience beyond all my expectations, an inspiration for my future, a hope to hold on. And it is probably not the real end of this journey, its the beginning of the start I reckon. The warm-up. I am waiting eagerly for the real thing. Sooner or later!

Looking back

1st went to Austria. Hating everything initially. The cold. The overwhelming language problems. The massive roommate clashes. Being worried. Scared of every small little thing. Having to move just after a month. Departure of my fellow german summer schoolmates. All enough to make anyone sad and depressed. 

Then I got to know more people. I adjusted and adapted. Winter wasn’t that bad. The snow was pretty. The cold wasn’t that miserable. The sun still shone. Things brightened up. We went on trips. Prague, Vienna, Venice, Germany. It was fun. Winter went pass sooner than I thought. 

The winds blew Spring and Summer in. The days got longer. The sun shone brighter. The layers came off. Things continued to get cheerer. Warm nights brought around parties and times spent outside. But some exchanges are longer than others, and many of those I knew left. Some left before I could say: See you again soon! And then there was me. Classes went on until it ended. I continued planning for big things. 

And then it was the farewell party. 2 weeks on the road. Meeting new people. Exploring small nooks and corners of metropolises. Gesturing in foreign languages. Finding my way around. Discovering cities. And most importantly, all those cool Ultimate players I met. Experiencing the real city life with them. 

So? Whats the next step. Going to Austria was probably the best choice I made. Ever. Of course there are things I wished I did. Or wish I didn’t. I think everyone’s overseas experience is great. Some are just greater than others. I think mine was more than great. It was awesome. 

So a great shout-out for all those great people, in the mighty continent which has stolen my heart. For making me feel at home. For being accepting. For being fun. For the hospitality. There is so much more for me to do in Europe. No distance will keep me away. Someday. Sometime. I will be back.

Same Old

There ain’t no reason things are this way
It’s how they always been and they intend to stay
I can’t explain why we live this way
We do it everyday

Life rolled on as usual. Its all the same. Just another 365 days. Everything is the same. The same old paintings hang on the wall. My books lined up the same way I left them. Dust collecting at exactly the same corners. The usual things are there. Messier though. I still do things the same way. I don’t know why. But its all not the same. And its not them. Its me. Nothing is really the same. Its like experiencing an out-of-body period. The things I do now, seem foreign to me. But I have been doing them all my life. 

Some things never changed at all. But are you sure? Really?

Distances

I flew a few thousand km today. I got further and closer.

Zeit lauft!

Der Zeit is um! Dreading the moment. Oh dear. 

Auf Wiedersehen mein Europa

Catching up

Time is catching up with me. Anyway, before I dive into the present (which I shouldn’t), lets recap Zürich. I think out of all the cities, Zürich kinda felt the most at home, maybe its coz they speak german. Well badly mangled german, but none the less german. And being able to understand everything just made everything less stressful. And comparing Geneva and Zürich, even though both are Switzerland, it feels really different. Obviously Geneva is much more french. But there was just something in Zürich that made me really felt really at home. 

Of course every trip isn’t without its guilty indulges, and I want to announce that I managed to get a steal, a Crumpler bag, european model, at half price, which is awesome and also means that it is cheaper than the SG models. =) And on top of that, I got those yummy chocolate cigars, and a really pretty Sigg bottle. 

And most of all, I totally had so much fun walking around the city with Gabi and just going through the city with a local, it really allows you to take in the city with a different fresh perspective. 

Packing was a pain, and I think I lost my Singapore number sim card. Die. Need to find it like NOW. I don’t fancy rummaging through my trash incase I don’t find it tomorrow. But meanwhile, I should go to bed. Nitez!

Back!

Züruck in Innsbruck. Ich muss einpacken.