Day 42
The week started with preparing for a presentation on tuesday, with my group member, Pere, who is from Catalonia. It is special to note that while Catalonia is under Spain, and people from there hold a Spanish passport, they do not see Catalonia so much as part of Spain, but pretty much like an independent country. Pere gave me a similar example like how Taiwan sees itself as a country rather than part of China, so the situation over in Catalonia is something along this line. Another interesting thing, Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, so perhaps that's why there is such a strong rivalry between Barca and Real Madrid! It comes as no surprise that most of them are Barca fans too!
It is absolutely amazing to know a lot of things you previously didn't know, and to try knowing Europe from Europeans is probably the smartest thing to do!
Day 43
Had classes in the morning, but the usual lazy me couldn't be woken up by 3 alarms so I gave the 9am lesson a miss. Went to the library when I woke up to read on the chapters I missed out in the lesson so as to ease some of that guilt. Presentation in the afternoon, or more like a discussion of an essay done by another group didn't go that well! Probably because I haven't done a presentation in a long time, coupled by the fact that I wasn't that well-prepared, I thought I could do a better job! Oh yes, students here are not afraid to shoot questions at anytime during the Q&A, unlike us where we often take everything at face value. So if you are going to present something, you really have to do your homework well before you go to class!
We had dinner at Seb's place where we had curry for the 4th consecutive day, and that makes me very happy. Hahaha they might not be too used to my eating habits, but yes I just don't get sick of it. Hahaha. Afterwards, we stayed for some drinks and I was camping livescore and managed to catch highlights of how liverpool dispatched real madrid 4-0. Seriously, they played some good football, and it only leaves me puzzled why a certain other team is dominating the english football now. The only answer I can think of is consistency and a manager who is much better at doing his job. hahahaha.
The borrel at night was not too good, yes got to see a few of my friends from the group, had 2 beers but a fight broke out. Apparently someone had wore his liverpool jersey to the club to celebrate liverpool's victory, and got picked by someone who is, I'm quite certain was a real madrid fan. Needless to say, the guy who inititated the fight got thrown out of the club, and the borrel ended early that night. How nice.
Day 44
I slept quite early the previous night, at around 1 to prevent myself from not waking up at 9am again. While I did wake up at 840 in the morning, I did so with much difficulty, and had the thought of missing out on marks that came with class participation not go in my mind, I would have continued sleeping! However, in my haste to go out of the house since I was running late, I left the keys in my room and locked myself out in the process! Peter was still sleeping so I thought it wouldn't be too good to ring the bell and get him to pass me my keys.
And when things go wrong, they really do go wrong. Of all days when I had to cycle over this canal, which I always do everyday, the drawbridge that links this canal had to be drawn to allow 2, yes TWO boats to pass! That took up a good 5 minutes! I was in no mood to take a picture of the drawbridge, but yes it dawned upon me that the boats could not have chosen a better time to pass that canal! haha
Well the seminar turned out fine, pretty much a monologue, but still not too bad. And to my pleasant surprise, there was no lecture in the afternoon so my weekend began at 11am! hohoho.
After having a lunch of leftover curry (5 days of curry, hurraf!), left for home to do my laundry and slacked in the room till 7, before I joined my group at the pizza place for the regular 5 euro pizzas. Drinking followed, and it was Champions League action which saw the other 8 teams fight out for the last 4 slots in the quarter-finals!
We went to this bar called Coco's Outback, which was the place to be for games like these! There were like 7 or 8 televisions at least, and they had at least 2 televisions playing one game, so there were 4 games played in the same pub simultaneously! You would always know if there was a goal just by looking at where the cheers came from! Totally awesome! But we got there late and there wasn't any seats, so we went to the pub next door, called Cafe Nasty. Either the name didn't sound too friendly, or there were too many people going to Coco's.
BUT there were at least a good 10 tvs in the pub as well, and they were showing ManU vs Inter! So we had to patronise it! Beers are 2.50 euros a glass wasn't exactly too expensive, considering the same amount of beer I had to pay for in CHIJMES during the ManU vs liverpool game 2 seasons back was the equivlent of 6 euros, S$12!
We sat outside since the rest wanted a puff or two. Really, sitting out in the cold, sipping cold beer is enjoyable! I think that's what they meant when they say 'chill out'!
Note the radiator on the left, its hot! Such devices are very common in areas outside pubs so patrons probably won't freeze their butts off.
A shot taken from outside Coco's. We were sitting outside the neighbouring pub.
I just had to take a photo of us, a memorable night where Mourinho finally had his foot his mouth for saying that he was ready to take ManU down with Inter, like he had done so previously with Porto and Chelsea. He obviously doesn't know how not to count his chicks before they hatch. Not only that, it seems like he was too upset that he had to punch a ManU fan before he left, and goes on to praise ManU, like how we can go on to win the quintuple! Hahaha too late for bootlicking loser!
Anyway, decided to cycle home to have an early night. Some sights along the way.
This well-lit alley lined with bicycles was quite pleasing to my eyes.
One of the many roads that lead from the town area of Amsterdam. I remembered getting lost in one of these streets on my way back from a club in my first week here. Worse, I was without a bike! Looking back its really quite amazing how much better I know Amsterdam now!
Lenny had a bite at this place called Febo, or the Old Chang Kee of Amsterdam. Some really nice finger food at decent prices (though still considerably more expensive for about the same food in Singapore. Like a burger for S$4? I don't think that is cheap in Singapore's context!)
Well its almost 2 am now and I got back from a potluck dinner on a boat not too long ago! It was good but it will probably take me another half an hour to talk about it. Will do it tomorrow cos I'm deadbeat now! Till then!
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