"You're wishin' too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughta be.”
-

oh joy! the weekends! :D

i really need this break. i'm beginning to hear phonecalls in my head.


merry christmas people! :)

i had a great christmas eve. had dinner together with the dotties, after which mf and yj left to see the lights at orchard, while the rest of us went to mos to meet up with sarah tham, sarah chong, kirsten and joleen. it was super packed in there but the atmosphere was really high. overall it was a fun experience, except for the cigarette smoke smell which got into my hair, and i can't seem to get it out no matter how many times i shampoo it, and some disgusting leery guys, and the fights in there, but those were quite exciting actually. haha.

today was spent with my family, or rather i tried to. i was suffering so much because of cramps again that i lay writhing on my bed most of the time with my mom and dad sitting beside me, keeping me company. yeah some christmas huh? but i was quite touched that they spent hours just sitting by my bedside although there were all the great shows on tv and other stuff to do and everything.


just a few minutes ago the people from my neighbourhood church came over to my gate, started carolling and gave me gingerbread cookies! hee.


GERMANY


"the hills are aliveeeeee, with the sound of musicccc..." haha.


SWITZERLAND


entranced by the falling snow.



snowball fight!



christmas market in berne. it looks like night already but it was only 5pm!



the sun, the moon.



the jungfraujoch ice grotto.



family pic!*



yes, i was that high up.



indescribable.



the chauteau de chillon. looks right out of a fairytale, doesn't it?



wind spirit.



another family pic* with the matterhorn as the backdrop.


*family pic does not consist of my brother because he didn't want to go, choosing to play computer games at home instead -_-"


ITALY, MILAN


autumn leaves.


city of fashion.


PISA


the leaning tower! it isn't as big as i expected though.



but the view from the top is magnificent.


VENICE


feel the sea breeze?



so cute!!



gondola ride. the men who row the boat all wear black-and-white striped shirts!



cruising along the grand canal.



sunset in venice.


FLORENCE


old town.


a sculpture by michelangelo. it's uncannyingly life-like.



the famous sculpture of david, also by michelangelo.



er, more sculptures. as you probably can tell by now, florence is very like an open-air museum.


ROME


the colosseum.



if the legend is true, i'm going back to rome again hehs.



mommy and i at the top of the spanish steps.


THE VATICAN CITY


queuing up just to enter the city!



the vatican museum. look at all those heads!



even the ceiling is filled with art.



the balcony which the Pope always stands on!


i survived minus twelve degrees! (and showered every single day, hee)

europe took my breath away. first it was the scenery in switzerland. everywhere you turned, it was a postcard perfect view. we went up to a few of the highest mountains in switzerland, and it was snowing really hard. like a blizzard. the feeling you get when you lie in blankets of snow, the tingly sensation when you stick your tongue out and experience the snowflakes melt into ice in your mouth, and all around you are just mountains and mountains of white, and above you just the blue, cloudless sky - it's surreal, almost like you're as close to heaven as you can ever come to when you're alive. then to milan in italy, which is nothing spectacular actually apart from the fashion there. then florence, pisa, rome and venice. venice is my personal favourite. the whole place is so old. the cathedrals are magnificant, dating thousands of years back, and even the architecture of the normal buildings is beautiful, being built in ancient gothic style. plus the pidgeons and gondolas, the canals, the music from the baskers, really there's nothing not to love about venice. it just has a very happy atmosphere to it, like the moment you step on the island you feel a wave of lightness wash over you, like you've been transported back to another century and left all your worries behind. it sounds so cliche but it's true! the people love venice so much that in toilets, they vandalise the walls with stuff like "venice is not sinking!". ironic huh. haha. the only drawback are the prices. you know in singapore, sometimes you have to pay ten cents to enter the toilet? in venice, you have to pay two sing dollars! and a meal for four at macdonald's there easily costs over fifty dollars?! super expensive. i guess it's to maintain all those ancient buildings.

aye i'm so tired. jet lag probably, i just arrived back here earlier this afternoon. off to rest now.


sometimes you just get lucky.


susan hill has a way of making one really depressed. it's a dirty trick - narrate the story in a way that brings you close to a particular character, emphasize with him or her, make you feel a connection, give you hope, and then kill them off quickly, in the most unexpected way. bam! everything comes crushing down. you don't even have time to mourn for him or her before the story ends, so it leaves you lingering with a sense of unfinished business. it got me in 'i'm the king of the castle' and it's got me again in 'the various haunts of men'.

i won't be reading any more of her books in a while, i need something happier. actually i would have wanted to read the sequel if only she let freya live. urgh urgh urgh.

i'm off to wallow in my misery.