My Grey World » poland

Jun200930

Hello guys. Sorry for not updating for so long. I’m safe and secure, back in tropical, very convenient island of Singapore. Seriously, you can’t appreciate Singapore this much until you’ve gone to Russia.

St Petersburg was…. not like anything I’ve experienced. I missed Singapore (and Jakarta) so badly but at the same time was charmed by the city.

I will tell you more in the next posts, but right now I want to finish my last year’s duty : to talk about last year’s Europe trip.

You know I think I’ve found a reason why I’m too lazy to blog about last year’s trip. Because in every photo album I published in Facebook, I always included captions to explain the photos. Blogging about the photos was a redundant process, as a result.

So here I’m gonna give you all the links to my photo albums on Facebook. They’re open for everyone, so you should be able to see them even though you’re not my friend on Facebook. Sorry, no random friend requests will be accepted on my Facebook though

Enjoy, and please sit back for a while before my Russia write up.

Last stuff from Poland

Ship at Gdynia

Poland 24th and 25th of May

Went around Sopot once again and visited Gdynia, a beautiful seaside city

View from my hotel room in paris

Last day in Poland, one night in Paris

A very short album, just a “bridge” to the next days’ photos.

Rome , Italy

Me in Vatican city - amazing ceiling

Rome day 1 part 1 – Vatican City

Met my friend Maegan who was on exchange in Rome. She took me to Vatican City on day 1.

Castel d'Sant Angelo (yes, the one in the Angels and Demons movie)

Rome day 1 part 2 – Vatican City, Castel d’Sant Angelo, awesome dinner.

Still containing photos from Vatican City trip, some of Castel d’Sant Angelo and other buildings around Rome, then I had an awesome dinner with Maegan in a fantastic (cheap!) place called Carlo Menta in Trastevere.

Btw, this is how (authentic) Italian pizza looks like…

Me with Colosseum

Rome day 1 part 3 – Colosseum

Do I really need to explain?

Me at Trevi Fountain, Rome

Rome day 2 part 1 – I Love Fountains

What’s Rome without fountains? Visited the ever so popular Trevi fountain and numerous other fountains. Spanish Steps and Pantheon are inside.

Il Vittoriano

Rome day 2 part 2 – Rome here Rome there

Saw the remaining must-see landmarks in Rome. Cathedral of Rome, Foro Romano (Roman Forum), Il Vittoriano, Aventine Hill.

Rotterdam/Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Me, just arrived at Amsterdam

Rotterdam/Amsterdam

Quirky architectures at Rotterdam. And of course ever so notorious Amsterdam. Amsterdam is actually quite pretty and serene! But then I didn’t come at night, so….

Paris, France

Me in front of Notre Dame church

Paris part 1 – excluding Eiffel Tower

Truth be told, I didn’t really like Paris. To me it’s dodgy, old, and uninteresting (especially area outside the touristy stuff). I much much prefer Rome. But then I visited Louvre and Eiffel Tower – and I’m glad about that! No photos from Louvre, no Mona Lisa photo, because I didn’t bring camera that one fine morning! Krishna asked me to go to a flea market so I didn’t bring my camera. And unexpectedly he brought me to Louvre. Oh wells

Info for anyone planning to go Paris : the first Sunday of every month is always free entry to Louvre! (Yes I got the free entry! )

Lights on Eiffel Tower!

Paris part 2 – Eiffel Tower

How can you ever visit Paris without visiting Eiffel Tower right??

I have a story about the trip to Eiffel Tower. Krishna and I thought that it’s not really far from this area called Chatelet (we were watching a musical in French with Spanish subtitles – needless to say we didn’t understand anything. Visualization was superb though). So we walked along the Seine river. Turned out that… Eiffel Tower is ENORMOUS, so even if it looks near from Chatelet, it’s not. I think we walked for almost half an hour hahahahha.

Then we reached, and we found out that the ticket to the top was out! So we had to be contented with just a visit to the 2nd highest point (2nd floor).

However at 2nd floor we noticed a queue at a box-like room. Turned out it was the ticket machine to buy a ticket to the top! There was a guy inside who tried to buy tickets, but his credit card got rejected. Some others tried too, but rejected as well. Krishna and I finally got to use it, and Krishna’s card got rejected as well. Just for the sake of trying, I pulled out my card and tried to buy 2 tickets to the top. And guess what! It got accepted!

So Krishna and I finally got to the top in the end…

And that’s the end of my Europe trip stories (photos)! Haha. Watch out for Russia trip stories. I promise it won’t take a year. Really.

If you’re my friend on Facebook, jump the queue and take a look at my photos. I’ve posted them all up

A teaser….

St Isaac's Cathedral, St Petersburg

Nov200814

Sylvia Giacinta

4

24th of May – The Opera in a Forest

I know it’s been so long! Nevertheless here’s my entry!

24th of May, the last day of our competition

It was the folk music category.. Songs that we sang:

Sohran Bushi (Japanese)
Xiao Huang Li Niao/小黄鹂鸟 (Mongolian folk song, sung in Mandarin)
Mamayog Akun (Philippines)
Dayung Sampan (Singapore, with melody adapted from a Chinese song)
Now I Walk in Beauty (Navajo traditional prayer, sung in English)

After the competition we have free time until the result announcement and closing ceremony. So we headed to Monte Cassino street to visit Krzywy Dom (sorry if I spelt it wrong!) a.k.a Crooked House.

It lives to its name, surely..

photo by Brocha

We ate at this cozy restaurant in the Crooked House.

Here’s what I ate!

Pieroghi (dumplings)

Yummmmmmmmmmm

This thing is called pieroghi (again, excuse me if I spelt it wrongly). Basically they’re dumplings, stuffed with different type of things and then smeared with different sauces! The one you saw above was filled with meat and smeared with creamy sauce.

And here’s another one!

pieroghi!

Yumz! This one was also stuffed with meat and some vegetables, and smeared with sour cream!

Okay if you’re wondering.. I did eat two portions of pieroghi!

The story was that.. I ordered for the 2nd one (the one with sour cream) but the waitress gave me the 1st one instead. Well honestly I was not sure that it’s the right one but she said that it’s the right one. So I ate it and halfway, she came to say sorry that it was mistaken, and brought another plate of pieroghi!

So kind of her, right?

Anyway, apparently our tour guide knows the owner of the restaurant and because of that.. She gave us..

me and honey vodka

Free shots of honey vodka! I know! I look damn happy with my vodka. It tastes delish! One of the choir member swore that her lost voice came back after the honey vodka. No kidding.

Other shots I took in the Crooked House was mainly shots of people (my friends, of course).

This is Jeremy..

Hehe.. The first “gloomy” photo is my favourite photo of the lot! He even used it for his profile picture once

This is George..

My other friends.. Jiaqi, Tracy, Jenevieve, and Dawn

The student conductor, Kenny.

Hehe.. He posed, ok!

After the food we walked around Sopot Pier once again before we took off to the Forest Opera (a.k.a Opera Lesna). It was a tiring walk, because we had to climb up a loooooooong trail.

So here I was, very tired (not sweaty coz it was cold and I couldn’t perspirate hahaha), in front of the gate!

And here’s a shot of what is inside!

This picture doesn’t do justice of how big it is.. Perhaps this photo I found in Flickr is more appropriate.

photo by elusja

The organizer gave out flags! Remember that we didn’t have our own flags? Apparently they made some for us! How sweet right??

But anyway, being a true Indonesian..

Mwahahahaha. Please don’t kill me, please. It’s just a joke

Photo by Krishna

Aaaaanyway.

The choir won Silver Diplomas for both of the two categories!

Photo by Krishna (or somebody holding Krishna’s camera)

In photo were the section leaders of the choir!

If you see that they’re holding some piece of paper, it was the train ticket! Now we had this train ticket competition thing there.. I’ll let this drawn explanation by choir mate Kevin paint the picture for you..

Aaaaanyway.

The choir from the Philippines, University of Philippines Singing Ambassadors (UPSA) won all the categories!

A photo with them!

After all the ceremony and stuff, guess what we did…

Get it?

Of course.. Paarrrrrtttaaaayyyyyy!!!! (DUH)

The food!

Photo by Krishna

Sausage sausage sausage! Have I told you Poland has the best sausage? Sausage sausage sausage!

And of course some dancing to the music by an awesome band!

photo by Krishna

Made some new friends.. here’s a photo of me with an Estonian girl!

And that was 24th of May! Was so tired and numb after dancing and everything! Haha!

See you on the 25th of May, the last day in Poland! (was so sad of leaving)

Jul200802

Sylvia Giacinta

0

Poland – 22nd of May – You Raise Me Up

I’m gonna try different kind of writing. Photos will be now inline with the pre-typed blogpost.

22nd of may

it was the opening ceremony! We were parading down the “hippest” and trendiest street in town, Monte Cassino. Think of it like Singapore’s Clarke Quay, maybe. Or maybe Holland V. Just some street that people will go to hang out and meet friends and all that.
So here is the picture, our choir parading down Monte Cassino!
yes, there's me inside :)
Oh ya, the choirs had their own flags..

But we didn’t! =( They gave us the Sopot flag instead…

(photo by Tracy Cao-the one in the picture below)

Every choir went up to the stage (just by the pier!) and performed one song. my choir performed “Dayung Sampan”, chosen because it has the word “Singapura” in it, despite the fact that the song was actually based on Chinese folk song melody.
I don’t have the picture of us performing =( nevertheless i will show you the stage!
mundus cantat stage
The MC (second from left) was damn hot… *swoon*
And somehow damn hot people will sound hot. Weird accent became hot. Mwahaha.
Ahem. Anyway.
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