Day 2 in Sweden

I didn't really have an excellent sleep, but managed to sleep quite a bit. I should have just taken out my sleeping bag and go under the floor, but no one else was doing it! (i read on some blog tt ppl do that!). Anyway, i was too tired to do anything major, esp with my fever on :( Azri had bought a packet of water and yoghurt, 30 SEK together. I just bought yoghurt for 10 SEK. If we'd known that the train would take so long to leave, we would have gotten something from the 7-11 store :( My mouth felt kinda sick too. I think i slept for abt 2 hours on one seat, then moved to another seat opposite up to sleep abt 2 hours more. And when i went to get a bottle of water, the conductor gave me a packet of water and told me it's free! hahah! Too bad for azri!

The view outside in the morning was fantastic! It was just lots and lots and lots of snow! Snow all around! I took this video to show you guys, with a view of the train in the end:

And here is one with houses in it!

Can you believe that! People actually live in this wilderness! anyway, I managed to take this nice sunrise pic:

After we reached boden, we found that we had missed the train for kiruna :( Our train took off from stockholm too late. And since the next train was in the evening, we pretty much had the whole day to explore Boden. We had another problem. The conductor on our night train didn't know how the Eurail system works. So, she wrote the wrong date on it, and it costed us one day. We wanted to find the train office, but no.. it was no where in sight. We enquired at the train station and everything seemed to be 300m away :P hahah!

We decided to correct our Eurail pass ourselves and went to find a supermarket to buy some supplies for tt day and the following day's breakfast. And after that, we found an awesome place for lunch! It was this turkish kebab-pizza-pasta place! I bought a vegetariska SPEC pizza (14SGD). And I was entitled to their complimentary salad:

And my pizza was huge as well:

Their toilet was awesomely decorated and great to business in:

I couldn't finish the pizza. I took 2/3 of it back in a plastic bag. And I think i had too much olives in the complimentary salad. My breath after that seemed to be filled with olives and I was even having a very light headache from it!

Anyway, we made our way to a wonderful frozen lake after that:

And it was here that i made the snow angel! The snow outside the path is really thick! After that, we made our way to the city centre of Boden:

It seemed to be quite a happening place, except that it was COLD. hahah... We were kinda tired and so, we came back to the train station to rest. I took one entire bench! I should have slept on it for at least 30 mins or so! and it was difficult to find water there! yea! we'd bought this 1.5 litre bottle of transparent liquid at the supermarket but it turned out to be some blueberry fizzy and salty and mineraly drink. It's the last thing you would wanna taste if you are thirsty. Finally, we went to board our train when it was time. It was weird because when the train pulled into the platform, we thought it wasn't our train, cos the label indicated some other place. Luckily, Azri asked me to enquire a conductor and i did. He told us this: Half the train is going to ??? and the other half is going to Kiruna! You have to go board it at the other end!! hahah! We took off with all our barang barang and managed to find the carriage that goes to kiruna! What a crazy train!

And here is a video of me going to the pantry place of the train:

And the train even had power point at every seat! oh boy! Imagine having that in S'pore trains!

anyway, we finally reached kiruna at about 730. Since we didn't have any map of that place, we had to make our way to the hostel with just an address. I had sort of seen the route in google maps though. We asked around a bit and finally managed to get to the right place. This is our hostel:

Yellow house at Kiruna. The owner was super grouchy to see us check in so late. He gave us the key and intro-ed us to the place though. We went out to walk around the place for a while and came back to sleep at about 1030pm! Super tireddd!

Off to Sweden on day 56!

And.. on the 23rd of march, day 55:
I had been trying to work on my 0P410 essay but it didn't really progress far. As of now, I had pretty much fixed the 2 papers that I am going to work with. And.. I'm done with the intro and about the first paragraph. I'm not really sure about the rest. I guess i'll need to read the papers in detail. Anyway, I'd already printed out the 1ZM40 readings for the train rides in sweden and back, so that I would be prepared for the test a day after I come back :) And.. This day 55 was pretty warm. I was to go to Azri's house to cook curry for them to say thank you to pau for helping me with the passport. I also had too much veges left over to finish before going to sweden. I asked azri to help me bring over some of the ingredients to their house. But after i reached his place, i found out tt i had forgotten to bring the veges! hahah! since it was a warm day, i made my way back in a tee-shirt! Everyone on the street was looking at me as if i'm some alien! c'mon! it's 18 degrees! And.. Aysun and Flo helped me cut up the veges. Aysun made potatos in cream! It was wonderful! Flo brought out the table and chairs from the garage and we ate outside! It was pretty cold, but just nice for the dinner :D The setting was a bit too romantic though :P My roommates back at home were going to some Irish pub St Patrick's day. I went back home just after the dinner to get some sleep for the sweden trip. I had a fever yesterday too. No pics for today :(

And.. on 24th march, day 56. This day was the departure to sweden. I woke up in the morning with terrible muscle aches and tiredness. I went back to sleep for abt 1 hr more. Then I panicked and woke up to start my day! hahah! I washed up and started packing frantically. Later on, I went down to get shampoo, toothpaste and skin moisturizer. It was quite late ald! I msg-ed Azri to ask him to wait a bit longer. It was quite difficult to pack all my stuff into that Man U bag, although it was big. I was also wondering if it would be allowed as cabin baggage by ryan air. It exceeds the dimensions by abt 10 cm in length, but i was planning to fold it. By that time, It was getting super late ald. I was initially supposed to get to sch early to print our tics and stuff, but I forwarded them to azri to print.

Finally, I made my way down to sch. And this was the time tt i figured that i had forgot my EUrail pass! hahah.. Walked back abt 3 mins to get it. I decided to cycle to sch and park my bike there. It'ld be safer than placing it in my house. Thinking back, I should have been done with the shopping and packing the day before. This morning would have been just enough for me to wash up, do some final packing and set off to sch to print and have packed lunch :) Anyway, after reaching sch, I thought i had forgotten my camera! I decided to go back and take it as Azri walked to the train station. Luckily, on the way back, i found tt it was on my belt! hahah! I parked my bike in Piazza and went over to the station. We had missed a bus and so had a bit more time. I went to buy water from AHtogo and strippenkaart for the bus ride to the airport. We were abt an hour early (i think) for our Ryanair flight. Luckily, the lady at the counter didn't check my bag's dimensions or weight, while Azri's much smaller bag got checked! hahah! Everything went smoothly except that they threw away my water bottle. I should have drunk up before they threw it away, cos I had lots of time... I ended up buying a bottle from the store instead. 3.40 SGD for 500ml :(
And i dozed off after taking the take-off video. My body felt weird with the fever. I was hoping tt it wouldn't spread to Azri.

And it was great to see snow again as we landed in Stockholm skavasta airport. There were lots of snow! yea! And since the airport was way off from the city centre, we had booked a bus to drive us there. 100km journey! And there were just HUGE fields of snow! It was just snow everywhere on the floor!

And this was the wonderful bus that i was in:

The other pics i took are all blur :( Anyway, after reaching the city centre, and finding the train station, we went to have our dinner at Macdonalds. We were planning to get sth from 7-11 later, but didn't have enough time. Here's my dinner: yes, it's muffin and fries :P

I found free internet though! The macdonalds there was cool! Don't even need to reg to use their free internet! hahah.. I managed to check my mail and do some messaging. And people in stockholm were really friendly to us. As I were holding a map on the street, I saw this handicapped man and smiled. He immediately came up to me to ask if I needed help! oh boy! but anyway, there was this guy at the macdonald's counter who looked super weak. I think he was drunk or drugged or sth. He'd somehow managed to get hot water to drink from the counter but he could barely hold it and drink it. He couldn't even stand straight. I nearly wanted to buy him a muffin. The people in the counter seemed to be nice to him though.

After dinner, we rushed down to the train station to find our night train to Boden. The train was supposed to start at 8:42! We got in at abt 8:30. But for some reason the train didn't leave the station till abt 10pm!! There were at least 3 trains that came to the platform next our ours and left! anyway, here is the kind of seat on which Azri and i spent that night:

The train had a pantry and it was in our compartment. Here's the menu. You have to divide by 5 to get SGD. e.g., the Yoghurt (20Kr) is 4 SGD. Sorry if you have to tilt your heads :x

quite ex when you think of it in s'porean terms. But i think it is okay for a Scandinavian country

And look at the tracks, all covered in snow!

yup! that's all for today, folks!

ohhh! What's Happeninggg herrrree!

This was on 20th march, day 52:
well.. Azri and I had to get our Eurail pass to travel back from sweden. And the problem was that that pass can only be bought online (takes too long to deliver) or at Amsterdam. Aysun decided to accompany us there for that day and so, we could use her discount card :) So, we made our way to the Amsterdam Schiphol airport station. But the man there said that we need out passport to buy that pass!! We forgot to bring them! hahah.. we then went over to Amsterdam central to ask over there. The lady there said the same thing! So, I decided to go back to Eindhoven to take the passports and come back. After my lunch, of course.. hahah.. I had falafel for lunch. At that time, i didn't know that we could eat on dutch trains! Or i would have take the falafel on board to save abt 30 mins at least! Back in Eindhoven, I first went to Azri's place to get his passport. Just before entering, i heard somebody using the rubbish bin and going inside after locking the door. I sneaked in with the key tt Azri had given me and rested my bicycle by the garage. I slowly opened the door. It was Pau inside! hahah! He was terribly scared by me la.. He seemed to be cooking something. He popped his head to look and his whole body shook in surprise after that! He dropped what he was holding on the stove, looked again and went "Yooooogaaa!! What are you doing heree!!!?? " At that time, his house owner came in with her 2 kids. She has her own key and normally comes in without ringing the bell. And that took Pau by further surprise! To him, it was Yoga appearing out of nowhere from the back door and some lady with 2 kids made her way through the front door! hahah! As he described later, he was like " What is happeningg here!!??". HAHAH! I couldn't stop laughing about it on the way back. People who saw me must have thought i was crazy!
I saw some people giving out free Oreos at Piazza! So, i choped ~3 packets :

Back home, i made some pasta and packed it in. And after that, i rushed down to the train station to catch the train. I had bought a discount ticket, relying on Aysun's student card to travel with. It was okay on the way from AMS to EIN since the conductor didn't really check. I guess it was cos the train was pretty crowded. But now.. it was pretty empty and boom! the conductor found out tt i was using somebody else's card. He was like.. 'That's not good!' and the fine + the new tic was SGD 102 in total.. anyway, all the discounts i managed to get using other's card would sum up to ard tt amount, i think... cos each way's travel saves me abt 15 to 20 SGD.. anyway Azri and I were sharing it! so, yea.. in the end, i still managed to save $. HAHA! But the sad thing was that Aysun's card got confiscated and sent back to her! They had thought i stole her card! hahah! anyway, It was abt 6+ when i reached amsterdam central!

I was worried that the counters may close by the time i reached. But surprisingly, they were all open! I waited for Azri and Aysun to tell them the surprise that i was fined. They seemed to take it quite lightly and Azri and I went on to get our Eurail passes. And it was there that i found out another thing after paying up for the pass: I had bought my old passportt! The new one was still in my room back in Eindhoven! The lady at the counter nearly went crazy upon hearing this! She tried to put the money back into my account but no.. it wasn't possible!

Luckily, Azri suggested asking sb to mail her a copy of my passport, since FC and Pau and Azri had copies of my passport. So, I called up Pau to ask him to mail it to the lady at the counter! And at that time, his comp hung and he had to re-start it :( Then, I asked FC to mail it too! But Pau's message reached them first and it was all settled! Pheww... The lady was asking me to go back to Eindhoven, pick it up and come back! That was crazy lah! Then, we went to another counter to ask if there is anyway we can travel back to Eindhoven under discount. I'm not gonna say how here, but we managed to get a replacement student card for Aysun :D My worry was put at rest! hahah! We then went around amsterdam to explore a bit.. The shops around canal and the red-light district, mainly.

And.. i like this pic:

haha, there were lots of swans at the red-light district!
I hadn't done much research on amsterdam and and we only had the evening. Pics to be in facebook soon. And at the end of it all.. the tired us took a train back to Eindhoven :D What a dayyy...

2nd hand shops & johnny's b'day

And on the 18th march, day 50:
FC and I went to get stuff for Johnny's birthday todayy! We hunted high and low for the cake but finally, settled with the one at Hema... It think it's the best place to buy the cake ald.. The other places are at De Beijnkorf at Piazza or just settle with the Aldi's cake :P We managed to find the whipped cream at Hema's as well :D Next we hunted high and low for the present and finally settled with a Manchester U ball from the PSV store! FC bought an arsenal one for her bf! shh.. supposed to be a surprise for him. I was to go confirm it with others before we finally bought it.
I had earlier got to know that KH/Aysun found this second hand shop. Azri wanted to find some winter wear stuff at a 2nd hand store too. Since i ald knew tt big 2nd hand store Het Goed, we decided to intro the stores to each other. Azri had some group meeting and couldn't make it :( The 3 of us went down to the smaller store that they found. It was cozy and had a lot of ancient stuff. But none of them were cheap and i couldn't find anything i needed. We then took a longg ride down to Het Goed. Took a few pics along the way, but they are all in KH's cam! I think the 2 didn't really expect it to be so huge. Things were cheap as well! Like said in my previous post, it's definitely the place to go to if you are moving into Eindhoven. We bought several things and spent about 1.5 hrs there, till it closed! hahah! After looking at the winter clothes, I began to think tt they weren't really suitable for azri's sweden trip.

19th march... it was the night of Johnny's birthday. And i had lesson from 145 to 530 :( wait a min.. i think FC and i bought the cake on this day.. yea.. we just looked for the present on the 18th. anyway, here was our plan for johnny's birthday:
Johnny's sec sch friends had asked us to give him a surprise on the midnight. They sponsored the cake :) anyway, we got the cake and a plate of whipped cream and the Man U ball for him! And we were supposed to video chat with the sec sch frens back in s'pore when giving the surprise. The prob was that johnny and his roommate, zaida hadn't figured out how to use their wireless network :( So, after getting zaida's no from FC, i contacted her and went up to their house. Zaida told Johnny tt she went down to look for her lost wallet and i told him that i happened to be walking past. I also collected his share for FC's birthday present. I got down the details of his wireless and came back home :) When it was time, we gathered at the base of his house and prepared our stuff. FC managed to connect to Johnny's friend back in s'pore who said 'hi!' to all of us :) and it turned out that i was the one to smash the whipped cream on Johnny's face :) and as you can see from the video below, i succeeded!

And after the cake cutting, we played poker (his fave) till late at night. And a neighbor came to complain that we made too much noise as well! hahah! Later that night, as we all went back home, there was this note posted on his door!

And later Johnny had sent a reply to them saying that it was his birthday. and they replied wishing him happy birthday! hahah!

The questions on day 49

I've lotsa catching up to do in blogging: Johnny's birthday, Amsterdam trip and kai hee's birthday...:

To start with, on 15th march, day 47:

I chionged my 1ZM40 readings. Another group was supposed to present about a company related to the readings and my group was supposed to ask questions to that group. So, we were to meet up in the evening to discuss the questions. Later in the afternoon, I went over to Azri's house to discuss plans for sweden with him. We didn't go far... managed to book a hostel and a bus from Stockholm skavasta airport to stockholm city. Apparently, the airport was some 100km away from the city. We reached the sch slightly late as KH was skyping with her parents. I went up to her room and overheard her sounding angsty and i somehow guessed that she should be talking to her parents :P I guess it's cos i used to talk tt way to my parents too! Later at the meeting, i was glad to have printed out the ppt and stuff so that I could refer back and forth. We were quite efficient.. managed to come up with ~10 questions. I was to type them out and put them on google docs for the 17th march!

Later on the night of the 16th march, day 48, we had a impromptu online meeting to settle the questions. We even voted on the questions and came up with a order of asking them!

The weather on the 17th march, day 49, was relatively warm. As i cycled to school, i could see a lot of people relaxing on the grass patch and tables outside :D I had brought packed lunch to munch on before my lesson. I tried eating at one of the empty benches outside and it felt great! I think the temperature was about 16 deg. The wind was pretty strong though :( Later, Kai Hee and Qing Qing joined me as we did some last min discussions about our questions. The presentation that we were to ask questions on was the last one and the entire session lasts for 2 hours with a 10 min break in between. We would have a test for the first 15 mins, followed by 4 presentations and Q&A sessions. It usually goes overtime. KH has a lesson before this which she often leaves early from! Anyway, i was sleeping for the middle 2 presentations and somehow managed to awaken myself for the last one! hahah! We were super out of time ald and the prof was hurrying the presenting team. The 3 of us took all of the questions, but there was only time for 2 questions. KH didn't get to ask. But the best thing of the day was that we had printed out a list of questions! and list was organised as well! I managed to pass the list to the prof. He sounded pretty pleased with it. hahah.. at least preparing the 10 questions paid off in some way :D