Really, really alone

I'm on my third day of travelling alone for the first time and I'll be honest, it hasn't been the least bit easy. I'm ridiculously talkative. I read signboards out loud, I show my friends all the weird instagram posts I find, my friends are the ones who deal with the navigating and I know they always have my back no matter what (like against pickpockets and ninjas and whatnot). However, being along meant that I had to get myself to places, which really meant giving myself twice the amount of time Google maps says it takes to get to a certain place. Like how on my first day, I tried to walk to the outer bits of Bruges to see the windmills and ended up in the city center. And later at night, I tried to walk back to the hostel and ended up almost walking out of Bruges.

The worst part though, has got to be what to do with all the crap I have when I need to take a shower that's out in the hallway. I pretty much take everything valuable with me in my backpack, along with my towel, underwear and sleep clothes. Which, if you understand the definition of 'being a girl' ..... Is a lot. And to deal with all that frustrating transferring of stuff in and out of backpacks and then struggling to take stuff out in the shower after a long day really takes a toll on you.

The sleeping part too, isn't easy. I'm a pretty heavy sleeper but I've been woken up in the morning to the sound of people going in and out of the door, brushing their teeth, walking around doing human things. And while I was cursing my way through another 5 minutes of sleep today trying to block out the sound of someone brushing their teeth, there really isn't anything that you can do about it.

But besides all that, I've actually grown to enjoy it. Not to say that I'll be spending the next few years vacationing alone or anything, but I see the appeal. I met a bunch of Singaporeans on the Sandemans tour in Brussels yesterday and we talked forever, having dinner and then drinks at a jazz bar together. Afterwards, we made plans to have lunch together today and then just spent the day walking around the Christmas market together. It doesn't sound that soloyolo anymore but that's the whole point of travelling alone, isn't it? To meet and get to know new people, spontaneously do things together and at the same time be independent. It's actually pretty damned enriching.

I tell everyone who asks that I'm travelling alone because everyone else has already been here - and while that's a huge part of it, I think I did it to prove to myself that I'm capable of being independent. That perhaps however needy and dependent I may be on others, I actually am ready to take care of myself regardless of the circumstances.

I'm pretty proud of myself though. And I think anyone who's travelling alone for their very first time should be. I started out incredibly terrified of being alone and regretting not having hired other humans to navigate and carry around all my shit for me. But now that I've done it, I only feel more confident of my choices and capabilities.

Now, I'm on this 13.5h overnight bus from Brussels to Prague and I'm actually missing my new friends. Tomorrow I'll be meeting Nicole for breakfast and Edwina for dinner which pretty much marks the end of my soloyoloing. I'm glad I'll be back with my humans again but really, even more glad that I went solo.

(also very very glad I have parents who care enough about me to tell me to get the roaming 3g thing that Orange offers so I can actually get around and make it back to sg eventually so their 20 year old investment doesn't completely fail them)

Alone

Now I'm finally alone in the cozy little room Jo and I rented, 'cos she's in Budapest with Van and Philo, Daryl and Zhi Wei are in Chamonix with the honorary housemate Wendy, and my parents are flying off tomorrow at 9am.

And while I used to love having the entire place to myself, complete with cheering and lots of off-key singing, coming back to an empty apartment might just be the most depressing thing ever. All the feels set in and I'm pretty damn sure I teared up just standing at the doorway, staring at an empty room. There was no one to say hi to, to have ask how my day was, no one to cook with and no one to mess around with.

I also lugged back a 5L bottle of water today, and I must say - water came a lot easier when it was the guys who had to deal with carrying the 2 x 8Ls and when I had Van/Jo around to deal with opening near-impossible caps. There'll definitely be another sappy post for these amazing people (with super human strength) I've lived with - but that'll come later. When the tears really hit the keyboard.

I did have an amazing 140eur dinner with my parents at Can Majo today though. Way more expensive than any meal I've had so far, but I swear by the quality of the food there and the amazing company my family is, even though we piss each other off all the bloody time. It really is quite ridiculous how fast everyone's growing up - Sean's heading off to SOTA already and Sam's talking about possibly heading to Japan for his 2nd sem in Sec 4 (which I really like because that just gives me another excuse to head over during recess week/Dec hehehehe). I'm pretty sure my dad would have flinched though if he really processed me egging Sam on to go over - but the white wine intervened, thank goodness.

Now that I've almost hit my 4 month mark here in Barcelona, I'm guessing that it's time to take being independent up a notch, from being independent (cooking/laundry/cleaning/waking up/taking care of myself) with a bunch of people that I had to get used to, to actually doing all of that on my own, with myself - if that makes sense.

Missing my people right now, but I'm glad we still got to celebrate Jo's birthday, have an amazing cream war which meant we ran around the house with whipped cream trying to get, well, mostly Jo, and finally insta-jack her.

Now I'm going to go back to watching 2 Broke Girls - as I did with New Girl when I first moved to Barcelona - to help me gather a bit more courage while feeling less alone so I wake up to a brand new day, awaiting new adventures.

"Perhaps the only difference between me and other people was that I've always demanded more from the sunset; more spectacular colors when the sun hit the horizon. That's perhaps my only sin."- Nyphomaniac

Germany: Munich

Honestly cannot decide if I like Munich or Fussen more. Munich very instantly became a city that I could see myself living in - so lively, had so much history, was safe (at least I felt that way), clean, had an abundance of good looking men, pork knuckles and sausages. I don't know what else I could ask for, really. 

The whole point of us heading to Germany in September was to be there for Oktoberfest, which meant that the cost of our hotel in Munich was pretty damned high but it's okay - I had a good time anyway. 

I didn't get to try these but I don't think I could really imagine how they must taste like, hmmmm. Everyone was wearing one of these around their necks though and while it was extremely tempting to get one to fit in with everyone else, I decided to save my money for food I could really eat hehe.

Some really cool in-the-building roller coaster with extremely trippy lights.

But rule of thumb: don't spend your money on horror rides, they're crap. 

We were all so excited about trying pork knuckle burgers because Brandon so excitedly declared them all yummy (he might have been drunk too, now that I think about it) but they were meh and so now Brandon's taste buds are no longer trust worthy. 

Marienplatz actually turned out to be my favourite place in Munich and it is blablabla so touristy/whatever but I absolutely loved the Mariensäule and the completely out-of-tune Rathaus-Glockenspiel. Plus the free Wifi didn't hurt.  

Funnily enough, one of our dinners was at a Greek restaurant - which really didn't make sense given how we were in Munich and all.......... but the food was still amazing anyway, and the service, impeccable.

And on our last day in Munich, we made the trip to the Dachau Concentration Camp with really crappy weather to add on to the already depressing mood. But even then, the place was still beautiful with the changing colours of the leaves and when the sun did stream in - but that never really stood a chance of being appreciated then. Just how, exactly, could people have been so sick to implement such forms of torture and extermination, I don't think I could ever understand. I mean, 2 years of studying Hitler/Lenin/Stalin and all that has somewhat told me how - but still. How do they live with themselves knowing how much they've taken from others?

Maybe we feel empty because we leave pieces of ourselves in everything we used to love

Fussen

One of my favourite places so far because of how beautiful it is and how nice of a change it was from all the cities we were seeing. Our main aim there was to see the Neuschwanstein castle but I think I enjoyed the scenery along our way up to the bridge more than the frantic snapping and shovelling with the hordes of other tourists on the bridge. 

This was dinner at Gasthof Krone, with this really amazing salmon and buttered rice and a really cute Hungarian waiter who gave us free drinks after our meal. Love. 

Daryl had this face on for a whole minute, just staring out at the castle. 

A spotless mind

Some days are better than others
But there are days where there's only 1 tee I want to wear, 1 song I want to listen to and 1 set of memories that replay.