Europe is an interesting place. The people there speak English, haltingly, but they speak a ton of other languages too. It's a little confusing at times. Although... travel within Europe is wonderfully convenient. It's like traveling within the US, there's no need for customs check or passports or any of that sort.
First stop - Blois, France
My parents and I flew separately (they were on SIA and I was on United 'cause I used my mileage points and basically paid only 5bucks to fly from NYC to Frankfurt, Germany) and they got there before me, so by the time I got my luggage and stuff, they were waiting for me. We found this place at the airport to store our suitcases for 5 euro per suitcase per day, so we stored two huge ones and that took a tremendous load off our shoulders. Now we were left with one huge suitcase and three tiny ones. Not ideal, but not bad. Then we flew Air France to Paris, France, and drove like 3 hours to get to a quaint little town called Blois... in the countryside... in the middle of nowhere. It was total deja vu. I could've been in Upland, Indiana because the place was surrounded by fields and fields. Maybe not CORNfields, but fields nonetheless. But it didn't bother me, because I was in FRANCE!!!!! First time there!!!
We were tired after all that driving, so we had dinner at the hotel and went to bed. The room was SO uniquely decorated. It was not like a normal hotel room. It was modern, the walls were painted red, black, and white, the furniture was so cool, and there was a little winding staircase that led to a bedroom upstairs. I regret not taking a picture of it, it was so cool. Oh well.
So the next few days we went to visit chateaus and wineries, and it was pretty cool. The chateaus were amazing. We went to three in all, and they were HUGE and surrounded with TONS of land. probably as big as singapore, no kidding. Okay, maybe exaggerating, but they really were enormous. Some of them were surrounded by lakes and forests, and it took us a while to get around the entire estate. The architecture was gorgeous too, and the rooms inside the chateaus were all so quaint and charming.
Although I wouldn't want to live in a chateau (some descendants of royalty still lived there), they're too huge and I wouldn't know what to do with all that space. Plus I would never be able to find anyone ever. It would be like playing hide and seek all the time. And some of the rooms were a little scary, especially those covered with armors and moose heads and stuffed real foxes. But they were cool to visit.
The wineries were fun too, we got to see how wine was processed and bottled, and then we got to try some champagne and wine. It tasted alright. I prefer sweet wines. And so I took lots of pictures of the wine while my mom drank all my champagne/wine and she got a little tipsy. haha. It was infinitely amusing, seeing her slap happy and laughing at everything and claiming she was a little giddy - from like 4 tiny cups of wine. haha.
On a side note, EVERYTHING in France/Germany/Europe in general is CRAZY EXPENSIVE.Wine/beer/alcohol in general is actually CHEAPER than water. Isn't that ridiculous? That's why my parents drank wine in France and beer in Germany at every meal because it was cheaper than my Evian water. I couldn't deal with drinking alcohol while eating so I had to get water. And there's no such thing as tap water there. It must be Evian water in restaurants, and it's like freaking 5 euro, which is like about 9SGD. Just got water!!! Ridiculous. Also, I don't know if we just picked the wrong restaurants or the wrong dishes, but I didn't really like French food that much. They eat a lot of baguettes with cheese/pate (dip made out of pork/goose/other things), and that was pretty good, except the bread was always ROCK HARD. I think French people must have very strong teeth because mine were crying out in pain whenever I bit into a piece of bread. But I must admit, their baguettes (when fresh and piping hot from the oven) are DELICIOUS. Don't even need to eat it with butter or anything. Just by itself, it was SO GOOD. We polished off baguette after baguette.
But other than that... they had a lot of raw stuff. Like when my mom ordered tartare and realized (after it was served) that tartare means raw meat, like raw beef and fish. She looked at it, screamed, and sent it back immediately. It was funny. I laughed. But then I ordered a fish salad (they only had fish salads. who doesn't have a normal chicken caesar salad???), and it came with anchovies and some raw fish. Ew. I just ate the veggies and tried not to gag when they came in contact with the raw fish.
And I had stomachaches a couple times, after eating the food. Don't know why. Must be all that contact with the raw stuff!!! And their desserts were super duper sweet. And their portions were super duper huge. It's amazing not everyone is obese like in America. I thought French food was served in tiny portions but I guess they're becoming Americanized too.
Second stop - Paris, France
After 3 days in Blois, we drove 3 hours back to the city of Paris!!!! It was beautiful, all the architecture of the buildings were incredible. I wish Singapore had gorgeous buildings like that, but when I mentioned that to my dad, he said no one knows how to construct buildings like that anymore. I guess they all died a long time ago and everyone wants modern buildings now. Sad. Old buildings are really quite precious. So we stayed 2 streets away from Champs d'Elysees, the famous avenue in Paris that is filled with brand name shops and restaurants.
Our hotel was pretty swanky - it was the Renaissance hotel, which is affiliated with Marriott, which is where we stayed the entire trip because we used our Marriott points. And we were right by the Arc du Triomphe, a famous landmark in Paris, which is surrounded by a roundabout. Now, normal roundabouts (a circle with many exits for cars to choose from) are small and can probably fit about 2 cars and they're quite orderly. But this one, ohhhhh boy. It was like MASS CHAOS. It was wide enough to squeeze about 8 cars in the entire lane, and there were no lines separating any lanes, so everyone was just squeezing their way in, weaving in and out of the non-existent lanes, and then randomly shooting out of their lane and into the exit without warning. It's amazing there aren't traffic accidents there every second of every day. French drivers must have very fast reaction times. Mom nearly had a heart attack screaming at my dad to 'watch out for all the cars' and 'drive slower' and 'EXIT!! THERE!! NO, NOT THIS ONE, THE NEXT ONE!! OKAY NOW!!'
So we visited a couple famous places in Paris. The Eiffel Tower was one of them, of course. How could we not? It was pretty disappointing in the day, looked like a piece of scrap metal. But when it was all lit up at night, it was the prettiest sight, especially when the lights started blinking and going crazy every half an hour. We took the elevator to the top and the view of the city was incredible. It was freezing cold though, so we didn't stay long. We took a tour bus that allowed us to hop on and hop off anytime, so we toured the city that way.
Went to the Louvre, it was an incredibly huge museum, to the Notre Dame Cathedral, which, in my opinion, was an example of commercialized religion. They were having mass when we were visiting, and it was like they were on display for our entertainment. While the priest was speaking, visitors were walking up and down the outside aisles, taking pictures with flash, pointing at people, whispering loudly... It couldn't be any more distracting. And then there were machines for you to put 5euro in and get some kind of souvenir postcard or coin. Who does that in churches??? I don't understand how people can go there regularly as members.
So anyway, the weather there was a little chilly, but still alright. For me, at least. My parents (especially mom) were shivering like none other. I guess Indiana's crazy cold weather has trained me well indeed. They both ended up wearing my jackets on top of theirs while I wore a three-quarter sleeved jacket. haha.
We went to Galleries Lafayette, a huge brand name mall, but didn't buy anything because everything was just so expensive. Europe is totally NOT a place to shop. It's good just for sightseeing. Even when we went to the outlet mall, everything was cheaper, but still not cheap. It's ridiculous. People there must make a lot of money!
Third Stop - Berlin, Germany
So from Paris, we flew to Berlin, which was incredibly rich in history and wonderfully fascinating. After a while, the design of the buildings gets a little repetitive. I think most of the buildings look alike in Europe, at least the places I've been to (Greece, Italy, France, Germany). They're old and sometimes gothic and they have intricate carvings. But in Berlin it was a little different. Because it was badly damaged by the war, a ton of buildings were destroyed, and so now they have old buildings next to new, modern ones, and it looks a little weird.
Our cab driver who took us from the airport to the hotel was a middle-aged woman, and she totally gave us a summary of Berlin's history and pointed out all the major landmarks. PLUS she was like 15 years old when the war happened, and so she remembered everything. She even played by the Berlin wall as a teen. Isn't that so cool??? So anyway the wall's obviously torn down now, but there's little markings all over Berlin to show where the wall used to be, and which side was East Berlin and which side was West. It was incredibly cool to be there and see all that in person because I learned about the war and the Berlin wall in my JC history class. We saw a part of the wall that was left standing, and the holes that were in it from people from the East trying to escape, we read about the history of the wall and how tons of people escaped successfully but many others died in their attempt.
We also took the tour bus around, and so we saw the huge glass windowed Parliament House, the Jewish museum, the Jewish memorial, more monuments, and shopping places.
Our other cab driver who took us from the restaurant to the hotel was so cute. He was an elderly man who looked about 80 but turned out to be only 60! And he was SUCH a world traveler. He'd been to every single continent in the world (except for Antarctica), and he'd even been to Singapore a couple of times in his youth! It never ceases to amaze me when I meet people who've been to Singapore. It's just that Singapore is SUCH a tiny little DOT on the map, I marvel at how people even KNOW where it is!!
Oh and German food... is incredible. I love it. They have tons of potatoes, enough said. I love potatoes. Baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, sliced potatoes, boiled potatoes, fried potatoes, ALL KINDS! haha. My dad went nuts and ordered pork knuckle at every restaurant we went to. It was pretty good...tasted like fried chicken. haha. And needless to say, we tried all kinds of german beer, and I don't normally like beer, but there was this one, called Dunkles Radler, at the famous beer restaurant in Munich called Hofbrauhaus... it was SO GOOD. I've never drank so much beer in my life. It came in this HUGE mug that I couldn't lift with one hand, and all 3 of us shared it. I couldn't stop drinking it, it tasted so good. Didn't even taste like regular beer. That's probably why I liked it. haha.
The people in Germany were so friendly and warm, much nicer than the French. Sometimes French people pretend they don't know English, and even if they do, they just keep speaking French to you as if you understand. I guess they're kind of snobby. But German people are so loud and boisterous and happy. I like them. I like the way German and French sound... the languages are just so cool. I wish I knew how to speak German/French. I'm glad their written language is in the English alphabet though. It helped us to kind of decipher certain words that sounded similar to English words. German words are CRAZY long though. It's like we'd be trying to figure out how to get to some particular street in Germany, and the street would be called something like Frastrandesbergstein. And so by the time we got to the last part of the word, we'd forget the first part. So to save time (and to keep ourselves from going crazy), we just memorized the first 5 letters to find the street. haha.
Fourth stop - Munich, Germany
Munich was alright, the day we spent there it rained all day. And not just sprinkles of rain, it was POURING like never before. So it kind of ruined the mood, but oh well. We went to Marianplatz and saw some more cool architecture, got a view of the city from above, and decided to leave before we got drenched. We met this really cute old chinese couple from Beijing at the Hofbrauhaus place... they were the sweetest little thing! The little old man was happily and slowly enjoying his pork knuckle, taking tiny bites and then smiling and raising his little camera on his little tripod and taking videos of the band performing. The little old woman was happily enjoying the pork knuckle too, and in between bites she would smile at the little old man and get up to help him take a closer video of the band. And then they would continue eating and smiling and clapping. It was the cutest thing ever. My dad and I laughed so hard at their cuteness and I tried to take a photo of them, but it was wobbly because I burst out laughing.
We also visited the Dachau concentration camp half an hour away from the city in Munich, and it was pretty intense. There were tons of people there even though it was raining, and the camp was HUGE! It housed over 6000 people I think, and there was a huge empty spacious courtyard for the prisoners to assemble for rollcall, where they would be counted and sometimes made to stand for hours. We also saw their living quarters, which had tiny beds and were really cold. I bet winters must be horribly harsh. There was a huge museum in place of where the prisoners used to live, and it had all kinds of pictures, facts, and videos about the camp and the war, from how it started to how Hitler took control to the awful things prisoners had to endure. The thing that stood out the most to me was how the prisoners were treated like they weren't human. Some of them were human experiments for SICK 'doctors' who used their bodies in the name of science. They took all kinds of people, especially healthy ones, and performed experimental surgeries on them. HOW SICK IS THAT?!?!? I almost fainted reading about it.
And then some of them went through other experiments like the Malaria experiment, where the guards attached boxes filled with malaria-infested mosquitoes to the prisoners' legs, and then tested them for malaria cures and all that. I couldn't read it all. It was too grotesque and inhumane. And there were all kinds of prisoners in the camp - it was one of the largest and longest-lasting camp during the war. It really was sad. I don't know how humans can commit such crimes against other humans. We didn't get a chance to walk through the entire site because it started raining super heavily and we only had one umbrella. Oh well. It was an interesting experience anyway.
We went to the BMW exhibition (I know, random, but it was indoors and away from the rain), and saw all kinds of cool cars and motorcycles. And then we went back to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner. It was good. I love german food so much.
So then the next day, when we were about to leave Munich, the sun finally decided to shine. So we walked around for a bit, then we embarked on a 5-hour-turned-8-hour drive to Frankfurt. My parents, in their attempt to be the smarty-pants, decided NOT to follow the GPS and try to get to Frankfurt on their own with a TINY MAP. Who does that?!?!?!? What is the GPS for, if not to help you get to your destination?!?!?! So of course we ended up straying from the path and getting lost and winding up in the woods an hour away from the highway!! They claimed the highway had a traffic jam. I say it was just an excuse. But oh well. I slept most of the time anyway. And we got to see little quaint German towns, so it wasn't so bad. We finally got to Frankfurt at 9pm and we were pretty much exhausted so we had dinner at the hotel, saw the view of the city from the swimming pool, and went to bed.
And the next day we flew home. Thank God for wonderful SIA, which allowed us to check in 5 bags altogether, and 3 of them overweight, with no extra charge. I love SIA. Not like picky UNITED/DELTA/EVERY OTHER AIRLINE IN THE WORLD! And I got to watch 'Shutter Island,' 'Valentine's Day,' 'How to Train Your Dragon,' 'Alice in Wonderland,' and 'Tooth Fairy.' Didn't sleep much, maybe half an hour, but it was so worth it.
And now I'm totally experiencing jet lag because it's 6.30am and I'm wide awake. Great.
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