The Top 10s
Top 10 Memorable Experiences
1)The road trips in Germany which allowed me to see many castles and entertain plenty of daydreams that involved knights and princesses and so on…
2)The scenic train route through the Alps which was breath-taking. I loved those high bridges suspended in the middle of nowhere. Not quite the same as the Rockies but still amazing.
3)Sleeping in the sun on the deck of the ferry (which is like a mini cruise-ship) on the way to Santorini, enjoying the Mediterranean Sea.
4)The most beautiful sunset I had ever seen which was on the island of Santorini. There was a volcano in the middle of the sea and when the sun set, it turned gold and the rays were all reflected in the water extremely clearly that they formed specific spots.
5)Being able to see the Pope out of pure luck and in addition to that, being just one metre away from him.
6)Gelato ice-cream as often as I can get them… sometimes twice a day.
7)Drinking beer with my German host family in the evening and sharing about our respective countries and cultures, talking about anything that came up.
8)The father in the German family is an astronomer so he had a powerful telescope in the house and with it, he showed with the planet Saturn… I even saw the rings!!!
9)Laughing over the EU statistics with my Austrian friend, especially at the one that shows which European country had the most sex which they matched to the happiness indicator… sex and happiness is proportionate!
10)I was short on small change and this Austrian guy just offered to pay for me, no questions asked
Top 10 NOT-so-Memorable Experiences
1)Taking the wrong train and ending up in Florence instead of Venice and then arriving in Venice at 11.30 at night, having to drag my luggage over the bridges since there was no transport.
2)Getting lost in the rain in Venice time and time again which gave the bugs ample opportunities to attack me. I suffered pain and itch from the bites for the next two weeks. It bled too!
3)Getting stalked in Venice for 3 hours which left me at a lost because there were so many narrow alleys and I had no choice but to keep to large streets, disrupting all the sights that I wanted to see. In the end I had to hide in a church until that pervert went away.
4)Getting cheated over a bottle of wine in Rome. If I ever see that bugger again, I will give him one tight slap and give him a piece of my mind. In fact that incident still makes me angry. I should not have given him the benefit of the doubt.
5)The unfair policies towards rail-pass holders in Italy which made me pay unnecessarily for reservations making the rail-pass not as value for money as it should have been. I was so annoyed I wrote a long complain letter. I am still contemplating whether to send it in to the Italian tourism board.
6)A drug addict dying in front of the hostel door from drug abuse in Rome, resulting in the police sealing off the area, making me a bit nervous about the district I was staying in.
7)Getting flashed at twice within the span of a week, once in Rome and once in Greece… basically old perverts.
8)Being trapped in a museum in Assisi because the museum tender did not want to let me out, saying his lonely and then tried to kiss me. He cornered me but luckily some other tourists came so he had no choice but to leave me alone.
9)The nasty museum entrance policies in Florence. They stopped selling museum passes and started to charge individually for each museum. They did not even allow student concession. Also, the split up all the important works of art in to different museums so if you wanted to see everything, you had to pay an entrance fee for each one, which by the way isn’t cheap.
10)Getting snubbed by the glass factory staff who were only willing to entertain BIG tourists with money. Oh, I broke something in Venice too and I had to pay for it… That was my fault but thank goodness it wasn’t expensive. BAH… Venice was just a horrible experience.
Top few Random/Amusing Experiences
1)Meeting 6 NUS students on the remote Greek island away from the rest of the world… one of whom was my primary school friend.
2)Hail on the first of June in Germany… I was freezing cold
3)Meeting a Havard Art History student in Florence who suffers from “occupational hazard”. She fed me lots of information but she is definitely obsessed. She walks so fast but never looks where she is going… I let her lead the way because she was always ahead of me unfortunately, she goes so fast that her speed causes her to waste more time as she makes multiple wrong turns. I was quite mean. I was so amused I laughed and she simply couldn’t understand why I wasn’t upset even though we made so many mistakes. Her walking speed did cause my heel to crack so I guess we are even. I had bleeding heels after that.
4)There were tons of sleeping dogs in Greece. On the island of Santorini, all of them were sleeping in the sun. They were so incredibly lazy that you could walk over them and they wouldn’t stir. They will only stir if another dog walks into their proximity. Some tourists even tried tickling the soles of the dogs to see if they would reach but these dogs simply turn the other way and continue sleeping.
5)In Venice, people pay to feed pigeons… the irony of course is that on one side of the river, people were paying to feed the pigeons which were real pests, and on the other side, civic officials were catching the pigeons to control the population. So if you are a smart pigeon, you know which side to be on.
1)The road trips in Germany which allowed me to see many castles and entertain plenty of daydreams that involved knights and princesses and so on…
2)The scenic train route through the Alps which was breath-taking. I loved those high bridges suspended in the middle of nowhere. Not quite the same as the Rockies but still amazing.
3)Sleeping in the sun on the deck of the ferry (which is like a mini cruise-ship) on the way to Santorini, enjoying the Mediterranean Sea.
4)The most beautiful sunset I had ever seen which was on the island of Santorini. There was a volcano in the middle of the sea and when the sun set, it turned gold and the rays were all reflected in the water extremely clearly that they formed specific spots.
5)Being able to see the Pope out of pure luck and in addition to that, being just one metre away from him.
6)Gelato ice-cream as often as I can get them… sometimes twice a day.
7)Drinking beer with my German host family in the evening and sharing about our respective countries and cultures, talking about anything that came up.
8)The father in the German family is an astronomer so he had a powerful telescope in the house and with it, he showed with the planet Saturn… I even saw the rings!!!
9)Laughing over the EU statistics with my Austrian friend, especially at the one that shows which European country had the most sex which they matched to the happiness indicator… sex and happiness is proportionate!
10)I was short on small change and this Austrian guy just offered to pay for me, no questions asked
Top 10 NOT-so-Memorable Experiences
1)Taking the wrong train and ending up in Florence instead of Venice and then arriving in Venice at 11.30 at night, having to drag my luggage over the bridges since there was no transport.
2)Getting lost in the rain in Venice time and time again which gave the bugs ample opportunities to attack me. I suffered pain and itch from the bites for the next two weeks. It bled too!
3)Getting stalked in Venice for 3 hours which left me at a lost because there were so many narrow alleys and I had no choice but to keep to large streets, disrupting all the sights that I wanted to see. In the end I had to hide in a church until that pervert went away.
4)Getting cheated over a bottle of wine in Rome. If I ever see that bugger again, I will give him one tight slap and give him a piece of my mind. In fact that incident still makes me angry. I should not have given him the benefit of the doubt.
5)The unfair policies towards rail-pass holders in Italy which made me pay unnecessarily for reservations making the rail-pass not as value for money as it should have been. I was so annoyed I wrote a long complain letter. I am still contemplating whether to send it in to the Italian tourism board.
6)A drug addict dying in front of the hostel door from drug abuse in Rome, resulting in the police sealing off the area, making me a bit nervous about the district I was staying in.
7)Getting flashed at twice within the span of a week, once in Rome and once in Greece… basically old perverts.
8)Being trapped in a museum in Assisi because the museum tender did not want to let me out, saying his lonely and then tried to kiss me. He cornered me but luckily some other tourists came so he had no choice but to leave me alone.
9)The nasty museum entrance policies in Florence. They stopped selling museum passes and started to charge individually for each museum. They did not even allow student concession. Also, the split up all the important works of art in to different museums so if you wanted to see everything, you had to pay an entrance fee for each one, which by the way isn’t cheap.
10)Getting snubbed by the glass factory staff who were only willing to entertain BIG tourists with money. Oh, I broke something in Venice too and I had to pay for it… That was my fault but thank goodness it wasn’t expensive. BAH… Venice was just a horrible experience.
Top few Random/Amusing Experiences
1)Meeting 6 NUS students on the remote Greek island away from the rest of the world… one of whom was my primary school friend.
2)Hail on the first of June in Germany… I was freezing cold
3)Meeting a Havard Art History student in Florence who suffers from “occupational hazard”. She fed me lots of information but she is definitely obsessed. She walks so fast but never looks where she is going… I let her lead the way because she was always ahead of me unfortunately, she goes so fast that her speed causes her to waste more time as she makes multiple wrong turns. I was quite mean. I was so amused I laughed and she simply couldn’t understand why I wasn’t upset even though we made so many mistakes. Her walking speed did cause my heel to crack so I guess we are even. I had bleeding heels after that.
4)There were tons of sleeping dogs in Greece. On the island of Santorini, all of them were sleeping in the sun. They were so incredibly lazy that you could walk over them and they wouldn’t stir. They will only stir if another dog walks into their proximity. Some tourists even tried tickling the soles of the dogs to see if they would reach but these dogs simply turn the other way and continue sleeping.
5)In Venice, people pay to feed pigeons… the irony of course is that on one side of the river, people were paying to feed the pigeons which were real pests, and on the other side, civic officials were catching the pigeons to control the population. So if you are a smart pigeon, you know which side to be on.