the people we meet

this post is dedicated to all the people i met while i was in europe. i actually regret that i have not taken more photos, especially with my roommates. i am glad that some of us have hooked up via facebook tho.

that’s from the meeting i attended. i don’t often put work related pictures on this blog, but he was wearing a lederhosen and i wanted to share that. i have an awesome story about lederhosens and an old german beer house in munich. if we ever meet, ask me.

that’s my free tour guide masa kat munich. well actually, there were four of them and there were a big group of us. i actually found a group picture on the tour website but i am tiny there.

the picture is of jared, but i fell into heidi’s group instead. she’s in the big group picture.

and that’s spike, the guide in paris who’s from the same company. i like the idea of free tours. i know that it would never work in malaysia because we don’t have a tipping culture and we’d be too cheapskates to make it worthwhile for the guide anyway. but i think have free tours in europe is so cool for poor asian backpackers. spike is a history major at a college in paris and i think its so awesome that she takes time to look up trivia and interesting facts to share with us during the tour. i suppose when you work on tips, you really got to impress the customers.

i wish i had a picture with ena, my bosnian-swedish roommate at that hostel in paris. ena, if you are reading this, i hope you and the spanish guy are having a wonderful time with your apartment with a garden! :)

and i wish i took a photo with the bulgarian guy who was eating cheese at the hostel courtyard, just in case he was telling the truth when he told me that he’s an actor and he’ll be world famous someday.

and that is my guide in barcelona and he’s every bit as a hippy as he looks. he’s from a different tour company, but they also offer free tours for the cheapskate traveller. the way the tour is conducted is basically the same but this guy is more casual than the other company. casual is not a bad thing, though. since the group that gathered for the day were mostly young and curious, we moved at a very relaxed pace.

lupa pulak nama mamat ni.

that’s me with some of my roommates (claire and lilian – both on the right) who went on the barcelona free tour. i found out that the tour company is actually on facebook too and has pictures of us on their photo page there also.

my roommates in barcelona were an unforgetable group of people.

the dorm had eight beds and the thing is, i spent quite some time in barcelona and i met many roommates who came and went.

thing was, there were these other three guys who stayed almost as long as i did and we introduced and reintroduced ourselves to new roommates over and over again.

the three guys are spanish, one of the canary islands (see oscar – i remember!!!) and the other two (fernando and pablo) from a district near madrid. i had the funniest time testing my barely developed spanish with them.

oscar, if you are reading this, i hope you’re having fun in barcelona and have found a job already! :)

escrida is left. deretcha is right. i will not forget that. i just hope i got the spelling correct.

two of the guys speak very little english but they were just the funniest. they gave me some spanish mp3s which i know i will never completely understand.

now you tell me – doesn’t the guy in the baju belang nampak macam edward cullen from the twilight movie?

i met these girls for two evenings in barcelona because we’re supposed to go see flamenco together. the one on the right is italian. the one on the left is spanish. thing is, we needed a foursome to get the tour group going and after two days, it never happened. instead, we spent the evenings by the fountain talking about everything from rome to art to boyfriends.

speaking of rome, i have already introduced you to carlo, one of the two femes photographers i met up with. i followed his friends and family to the world press photo exhibition while i was there too, which i pretty damn cool. his daughter andrea, is an intense ball of energy. put her with her cousin and they become unstoppable.

last, but not least, this is one of my six roommates in rome. he’s irish. i forgot his name, but i remember that it starts with an “F”. evidently, he is unconscious. the reason for that is that he came back at 4am the night before completely intoxicated. just how drunk? by 5am, he has puked all over the shared bathroom floor and dragged some of the mess into the dorm. that’s not his bed he’s landed on either. his pants and shoes are in the corridor and his passport is on the floor.

so there you have it, folks. just some of the colourful characters that made the trip all that more interesting. have an awesome weekend. peace. out.

to score in a champions league final against manchester united and win the league title is just unbelievable. it’s a dream. this has been an unbelievable season. ~ lionel messi

so here’s a post that i am half afraid to write because i know that some people who read this blog are sore manchester united loser fans just so much more knowledgeable about football than i am.

it was purely by coincidence that the very day that i decided to visit the colosseum, the champions league festival was about to be launched. and so there i was as the limos bearing the UEFA cup president pulled up towards the arch of constantine.

and yes, there i was among the mob of photographers and curious passerbys as the champion’s league trophy was carried to a stand and revealed to the public. the guy in the suit walks up a red carpet, gives his speech and we all clapped. oh what a sun shiny day it was in rome that morning.

the trophy was brought up, enclosed in a clear box and ladies and gentlemen, the champions league festival has begun!

and on either side of the arch were booths. one side, barcelona. the other side, manchester united. and here’s the thing: the barcelona was so much fun. everyone greeted me out loud. everyone was laughing and taking pictures. they gave me complimentary fridge magnets and postcards. they were all happy to talk about the players and recent copa del rey and spanish league winning. mood sungguh meriah sekali.

kat the manchester united booth pulak, the mood was just less exciting. no free gifts. take your own postcards from the table. no excitement. no laughing. the people manning the booth looked like they did not want to be there. i went into the booth and took my own postcards and walked right back out. the only ‘excitement’ that i could see were a few highly intoxicated MU fans being very loud and demanding right outside the booth.

fine, i blame timing. maybe i just got there at the wrong time. maybe if i went there at the right time, the MU people would be all friendly and we’d all be welcomed with big bear hugs and they’d hand out cotton candy and we can all hold hands and sing ‘glory, glory manchester united’ together.

*snort* yea, right.

i was on a flight from frankfurt back to KL on the night of the game itself so i did not get to watch the match. instead, i was greeted at the airport by a panda eyed J. he and KL had been up all night watching barcelona kick MU’s ass the game before coming to fetch me.

of course i knew who was going to win, i said to J as i handed him his souvenir from europe – a barcelona unicef jersey :)

italian mozzarella

i got to meet up with some famous photographers while i was in italy. it was actually SL’s idea since i was missing the photo awards ceremony back in KL, and since these guys can’t make it to KL either, that we’d have a mini award ceremony of our own in *ahem* campo di fiori, rome itself.

and so i emailed carlo gianferro and giandomenico marini and we agreed to meet up on my second evening in rome (technically, my first evening since my first day was in castelfusano, but that’s another story altogether).

the meeting was supposed to be at 7pm but i left the train station early since i was quite sure that i would be getting quite lost. and yes, i did. i took a bus that overshot my stop by two stations and had to backtrack on foot. by the time i found the place, i realised one critical dilemma: all italian men look the same to me and i have no idea how these guys look like.

(no SL, they did not arrive on a vespa, or two :))

here’s one word of advice when lost in rome: have a gelato. no seriously, over the following few days, i found myself constantly dizzied by the streets in rome, but there will always be gelato and thus, there will always be some kind of happiness and hope available.

i bought my first gelato (peppermint chocolate chip) and went to sit at the foot of the giordano bruno statue at piazza di campo de fiori. remember how i told you that things work out if you’d just a gelato? well, over comes this almost bald italian guy in blue denim shirt, looked at me and tried to pronounce my name. close enough. he introduced himself as giandomenico and that carlo was on the way. carlo is always late, he laughs.

how did he pin point me from the crowd? duh, i was the only asian looking girl, hah!

carlo eventually arrived and we went to one of those cafes that looks out to the piazza. the waitress brought mozerella and the two guys attempted to explain to me what mozerella is. no, it’s not like the mozerella cheese you get at home. from giandomenico’s description, it is a cheese that is almost a cheese and has been removed from the process at one point. that’s why the consistency of the one i had that evening was not solid like the ones back home. it’s texture is almost like jelly. mozerella is eaten just like that with maybe a bit of pepper or diced tomato or olive oil.

sorry la, takde gambar. aku tak nak jakun ambik gambar semua benda depan these guys. he he he.

the two guys are super fun to hang out with and tak lansi langsung. they are both good friends and giandomenico was telling me how when carlo first started taking pictures, how awful they are. they were just terrible, he tells me. and fast forward some years, here we are, carlo won first place in this year’s world press photo awards. how awesome is that.

the two told me stories and jokes and more mozerella trivia and i realize how fluid the italian sense of humour is. they tell me about other photo competitions they’ve been in and exhibitions and projects such as abusidarte, which i’m not sure people in KL would be able to stomach, but hey it was apparently a hit in rome.

and as the sun set (sun sets at 9.30pm in rome in the spring before the solstice) and the lamps came on around the piazza, we chatted some more about art and travel and the people we meet.

and of course, more mozzarella.

the first world state of mind

i actually had a lot of expectations in venturing to western europe. of course i wanted to see the art and the history and all. but i had expected a wise air of maturity. a sophistication. all that stuff they told us in morals and ethics classes about a well-behaved civil society of cultured people.

you know where i am getting but mind, i was not completely disappointed. flying over germany was exactly how i envisioned a first world country would be. solar panels. wind turbines. and then in the train to the airport, i notice a little graffiti in the tunnel walls and thought, its okay, we got some creative vandalism at home too.

but as i traveled to paris, the graffiti got more and more and from tunnels, they spanned onto walls of almost the entire track passage. in barcelona, the graffiti crept onto parts of the train. by the time i got to rome, the trains are completely covered on colourful spray paints (pic).

and while the trains themselves are efficient – they come every five minutes, tops – but they are old. i suppose it says something about their engineering if old carriages like those are till used, but i remember standing in a train station in paris feeling kinda disappointed that the train arriving was a box-shaped thing with doors that snapped like an impatient french lady.

heck, i remember taking the train back to my hostel in paris one night, and a drunk man sat beside me and started mumbling to me. he went on and on and on. i was still a few stops from my station and i swapped seats since the train was not full. people looked. it was not nice.

i had maybe too high of an expectation of what a first world state of mind would, or should be. appreciation for health and well-being was one of them. but here’s the truth, majority of the locals i met smoked. you think a lot of people smoke at home, well double or triple that make them all chain smokers while you’re at it. in a crowded street, every other person you see is smoking.

i have nothing against smokers, but i am just shocked by the magnitude. there are cigarette vending machines almost everywhere. people in business suits smoked. parents would smoke in front of children and even while pushing prams. young people, old people, rich-looking ones, homeless, boys, girls, there is specific no demographic to it.

there was a time i was sitting on some steps in trastevere, rome, and a girl with dreadlocks asked me if i had a lighter. and i told her that i did not smoke. she had to pause awhile to register that idea before moving on to ask someone else.

and the LITTER! oh. my. god. they litter everywhere. there is a bin there, but they still litter. i think this is my greatest shock. name it, they’ve discarded it. sweet wrappers. cigarette boxes. cigarette buds. used plastic cups. bits of whatever. in germany, not so bad. paris, more (to my absolute shock and horror). as for barcelona and rome, there was a joke in my hostel that those two cities smell like washrooms – and this is not completely untrue.

crossing roads. in germany, they wait until the little red man turns greens before they cross the streets – even if there are no cars on the road. in paris, if there are no cars, they would sometimes cross the smaller road even if the little red man is not green. in barcelona, if you gather a group big enough, you can stop traffic. in rome, if you run fast enough, you can get across the road before oncoming cars bashes you to bits.

the homeless and beggers on the street are not a nice story. i mean, homeless and beggers anywhere is not a nice story. but over here, i am confused and a greater part of me really does not know how to feel about it. i see immigrants, mostly illegal i am told, on the streets, and refugees and gypsies – all looking for a handout. they tell me stories of war and dead family members and how they come in search of a new life.

and i hear stories about syndicates and how they use these sob stories of the war to pry for money. they wait at the gates of great churches and cathedrals and bear family photos. a number resort to stealing and pickpocketing – i hear so many stories of these too.

walking on the street at night, i see some streets staggered with drunkards, with a bottle in one hand and a foul word on their lips. they eventually collapse on the steps that would be their refuge for the night. steps that are more often a monument of some of the oldest and greatest civilisations in european history, or in the shadow of one, at least.

these are just some examples of my experiences. i had a brazillian roommate in barcelona who shared the same concerns. the latin american people are more caliante, she tells me. i tell her that asians are friendlier.

you know how there are all those campaigns at home that tells us to look to the west for technology and and the first world mentality? i fear that i don’t quite know what is that first world mentality anymore. for the most part, i am undecided about how i feel about europe. i have no regrets taking the trip and would certainly do it all over again. but, you know.

there is something about roving in that continent that gives me the acute awareness of my asianness, and a sense of pride that i have for being an asian. there is just something about these europeans that i just don’t want to be, and i can’t quite put my finger on that that is.

and it is not that europe was a terrible experience. i had loads of fun that i will share with you on the next post (wait for it! it’s gonna be awesome).

maybe i just went about europe the wrong way. maybe things would have been a universe of difference if i stayed at one of those posh hotels with thick embroided drapes and egyption silk bathrobes. things might have been different if i took those fancy tours with a flag waving guide and everyone had matching hats.

but this is the tale of the poor backpacker who walked in the back lanes of europe and found some of the cobbled roads a little uneven.

eating through the world

i have been catching up on my food this past few days. my nasi kandar. my hakka mee. my nasi lemak. char kuey teow. my ayam madu. my rendang. my assam fish. everything pedas pedas pedas! god, how i missed the flavours… how i missed food that actually had any trace of flavour at all!

fine. i’m being unfair. italy tasted like tomato.

thing is, europe IS expensive for the poor asian backpacker. i remember what mom used to tell me when i was put on a budget back in university – the poor student stinges on everything except food. so i walked everywhere on campus (kolej matrix was the furthest thing you can get from the faculty back then) and bought second and third hand books from seniors. but for the humble RM50 per week, i could still scrape at least two square meals a day and ice cream when i felt like it.

fast forward ten years and a whole different continent, one modest meal with no drinks costs me 10 euros. that’s 47.50 ringgit. and that’s drinking from water fountains and eating in narrow cafeterias. for 6 euros, maybe i could get a sandwich with yesterday’s baguette.

and so, i fell into the routine of the poor backpacker scrimping through, just to see the world. hog as much bread as possible from the hostel breakfast no matter how awful they are. one, and only one meal a day outside. and for dinner, cheap dried pasta and tomato sauce that i buy from the local grocery store and cook myself in the hostel kitchen.

i know this sounds so sad, but one of the happiest time i had in barcelona was when i found dried mee sua in the tiniest grocery shop an hour away from my hostel. i bought a packet for 90 euro cents (almost 5 ringgit), a box of chicken stock for 2 euros (almost 10 ringgit) and a packet of chopped vegetables for 60 euro cents (when nobody buys fresh vegetables and they are no yet bad, but just old, they chop it up and sell it in packets). i went back to my hostel kitchen and portioned the box of chicken stock in two. that made two pots of mee sua noodle soup. that’s two days’ worth of dinners. PROPER DINNERS, mind you! i tell you, i happily burnt my tongue eating the noodles.

other times, i found microwave packed food and most of them are as lousy at it sounds. the only consolation is that it is cheap. it is not as filling as i would like it to be, but drink enough water and the growling goes away.

i know what you would tell me the magic word is: maggi! i almost burnt my mouth off drinking maggi soup in paris. the kitchen had a pot, but no bowls, and no spoons. please, don’t even try to imagine. thing is, you don’t want to live on just maggi. seriously.

the worse worse worse is rice. european rice is so different. we have nice long grain whole rice. they have short, fat sticky rice. the rice does not absorb any of the flavours from anything. there was a time i bought a box of mircowavable “curry flavoured rice” and it was the most tasteless thing i have ever put in my mouth. every grain was hard and even though i tried to steam it with water, it stayed hard. i mixed the rice in a bowl of instant chicken soup which resulted in disaster.

i found the word “basmati” on some of the microwave packs and even that was unfamiliar. i found that the rice grains were mixed with european rice. the result was weird. the pack came with a packet of microwavable chicken masala which was anything but spicy. no trace of curry. no trace of chili. just pepper and tomato.

one of the travellers in the kitchen says, you can tell an asian by how she inspects her rice. that is true.

i find that a lot of europeans can do with cold food for days and days and days. there is no urgency for hot food. there is simplicity without attention to strong flavours. and while i am so so so fascinated by the history and art and culture and technology of european countries, i don’t think i can eat like them. even if i was not the poor backpacker and could afford proper meals, i don’t think i can be the one who eats cold food for days at a stretch.

would i do it again – of course i would. everything about europe was a new experience and i have no regrets for seeing what i had. but i might packed a little differently. i would have left the cream crackers i brought with me at home. i would have packed dried bee hoon and little bottles of spices and dried chilli with me. i would have packed rice. heck, i would have packed ikan bilis.

i love malaysian food.

la dolce vita

in rome. have not been writing a lot because the internet is a long story and will cerita when i get back next week. some of you might already know of my first day drama in rome. for those of you who don’t, well, it was not pretty and it resulted in a very tiring two days. anyway, i am settled now. my hostel is noisy, but at least the location is great.

i like rome. i like how there is something to see around every corner. i absolutely ADORE gelato and eat it everyday. weather is crazy hot! the italians are really animated in their conversations :)

just to rub it into some of you who may be reading this, i was at the EUFA champions league festival yesterday. manchester united versus barcelona in the coluseum in a coupla days and MU is going DOWN! even the barcelona booth is so much more popular, seriously.

got to go now. i got this dumb timer in the middle of my screen. free internet. limited to 15 minutes only. bah.

much love.

grazie, roma!

the people at the hostel am staying at is weird. well, i am not sure now if ‘weird’ is the right word. they are different from asians, definitely. i suppose to them, i am the weird one.

i find myself constantly lost in rome. and i am not being metaphoric here. i am sesat. for some strange roman reason, the roads here are not built entirely parallel. some of them are in triangles. giant triangles. and trapeziums. super enormous ultra giant trapeziums. it confuses the hell out of me and even with a map, i get lost.

omg, my map is so damn koyak and tatterer from opening and folding it so many times! ;P

despite all that, i like rome. and while it scares me, i like getting lost. there is something to see everytime i turn around the corner and things get interesting like that. i don’t think any traveller would dispute the wonders of getting lost ocassionally. it is the act of trying to locate where you are on the map so that you actually kow what you are looking at – not is sticky.

and finding your way back after that. hah. that gets funny too. especially when you’ve been walking and walking and walking all day long!!!

there is a crazy party scene in rome. while i am curious, i don’t think the pub crawl in rome will see me enlist this time around. i have too many roommates coming back at ungodly hours doing or having done stupid things. this australian girl had too much limoncello one night and bought a loud speaker @ hailer and started honking everyone on the streets. no, i don’t think that is hardcore. 10euros on a hailer that tips your baggage allocation on the plane? dumb.

she ended up leaving the hailer behind at the hostel when she left.

gelato saved my life

gelato. italian gold, i tell you.

i have a feeling that i am going to have gelato withdrawals when i get back home. sigh, it’s so expensive back home – good gelato, i mean. about RM6 a pop? thereabouts. its 2euros a cup here, and the cup is piled like it purposely wants me to make a mess of myself.

i know, i know, 2euro is like almost ten bucks back home.

well.

we’ll just have to see if that argument still stands when i go from poor backpacker to poor writer when i get home :)

last day in barcelona

and the sun is shining. the thing about the sun here is that it is super strong, super bright. what makes it dangerous is the constant mediterenean wind that blows, so you actually feel cool while getting serious sunburns that you only notice about six hours later. did i already mention about the red human beings walking about the hostel. yes, that is the aftermath. i cannot understand why people would do that to themselves. i have roommates giggling all evening about how much it hurts while applying lotion. then today, they´re off to even up the tan at the beach.

i think i will go to the beach today. but no, you won´t find me grilling in the sun. duh. i will be in one of the beachside cafes. enjoying chilled drinks. possibly eating a paella, finally. i know, i really should have had one by now.

a coupla days ago, some spanish roommates saved some spanish hiphop and pop mp3s in my player, which is interesting. not that i understand a lot of it, but i can make out random words and that makes me feel strangely happy. i realised that if people spoke slowly, i can actually pick out some nouns and verbs and understand what they try to tell me. my own spoken spanish is a grapple of words that are usually wrongly conjugated so no hope over there. i find that people here appreciate the effort tho.

paella. yes, i can cross that out of my to-do list now. people say it is something like briyani. my verdict: someone lied. it is NOTHING like briyani. the rice is different. the seasonings and herbs are different. the meats are different. the cooking method is different. in paella, the strong ingredient is saffron. personally, i found the paella disappointingly so-so. i know. i was actually hoping to be wow-ed. but no. i think it’s the rice.

well. been there. done that.

in case there are no more updates from me, it means that i have flown to rome and don´t have internet over there. i´m supposed to, though. but that´s what they said in paris too, and meanings may get lost in translation somewhere again. my flight is at 11.30am, but the airport i am flying from is so far out of the city, i´ll actually be heading to the bus station by 7 something. i learnt that that is one of the reason wht the LCC flights here are so freaking cheap – they fly from airports that are so inaccessible and take forever to get to. i expereinced this at both paris and barcelona so far. i would not be surprised to be taking a two-hour bus ride into rome tomorrow.

i will be meeting with some italian photographers on thursday. SL, i know you stalk this site, and yes, they have made contact. they gave me a description of a place in the middle of rome to meet. at the moment, i am 90 percent sure i will get lost. and it has only just occured to me that i have no idea how any of them look like and they have not seen me either, so we might have a problem there. but i am sure we will figure things out. plus, i hear that italians have a big sense of humour. well, more than the french anyway :P

so, until i find another internet connection somewhere, this is me, heading out to the beach, yar.

are we human or are we dancer?

woke up this morning craving nasi lemak. my last nasi lemak bungkus before my flight to europe this evening. tomorrow, i will have breakfast in amsterdam. lunch in munich.

my research for this trip has been different from my preps for south east asian countries. instead of flooding online forums with a zillion questions about here and there, i talked to people. over cold lychee, SL told me about the museums that i had to go while in paris. FS and IF argued whether or not i really needed to go to disneyland. and PA showed me photos of her recent trip there.

my spanish profesora went as far as to burn me a CD of what to see and do and eat and find while in barcelona. she was going to borrow me a bunch of books too, but the whole stack of them got stolen when she was at a clinic yesterday. she gave the clinic nurses quite the sounding and she was still upset about it when i met her last night.

and i will be meeting two super famous photographers while in rome. the kind that take photos that make you cry. or laugh. or make you wrinkle your forehead, stick out your tongue and raise an eyebrow.

my internet gallivanting comprised of surveillance of the influenza. i was whining to the akurians last weekend – to go or not to go or to go or not to go? a weekend of CNN, BBC, NBC, al-jazeera and discovery travel later, i packed my backpack.

but don’t you worry RC, i will be right back for the next prank. why yes, it does involve water, how did you guess?

those who are familiar with my expeditions will be reminded that there may not be any facebook, friendster or email updates while i am away. this blog will be my channel for any communications while i’m on the road. so stay tuned right here ya.

hasta luego, amigos! :)