South of France

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of France. 

Let's get rich and buy everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance.

We got to Avignon in the blistering heat. The walk was a 20 minute one and we're like ahhh whatever, let's take a bus it's too damn hot. The bus that caused us to walk an extra 30 minutes, thank you Italian efficiencies. But anyway, we walk around Avignon for the rest of the day and we're only mildly impressed, it's dusty, it's hot and I would definitely not buy my parents a house here. We go to the tourism office on a whim and she tells us to go to Pont du Gard, best. decision. ever.

This is the South of France that I wouldn't hesitate to put my money down for. The water's crystal clear, cliff jumping happens about every second. The water is cold and glorious in the sweltering heat, it cools our cans of drinks and we wash our peaches in the clear water. It's a great break from the hot dry Italian weather we've been getting for awhile.

We're jumping off cliffs and doing stupid things when a group of very rowdy boys come along and do crazy things and cliff DIVE. They're pretty damn fearless (to the point of being dumb?) and very soon they get bored with just diving and jumping crazy. A couple of kayaks come along and there's 2 very unsuspecting girls in one of them. The boys all jump in and swim as fast as they can towards the kayak. They grab on and don't let go, even with the girls frantic "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEEEEEEEE". They even try to climb onto the girls kayaks... these girls are jokes. I would've hit them on the head with the paddle.

Dinan and St Malo

  

It's the biggest hassle ever to get to Dinan. We head over to the train station to book our tickets 2 days in advance and the dude at the counter stares at us in disbelief, "ARE YOU KIDDING?" We're a little confuzzled but apparently everything is sold out.. Jokes on us. We have to choose an alternative route instead and spend a little more money but whatever, Dinan better be worth it. It's a quaint little town, cobble stone roads and half timber houses. Yep, all that jazz.

We set off early in the morning, intending to leave a whole hour in advance cause we don't wanna be late for our first train. We have our usual chit chatty session over breakfast and before we know it, it's half an hour to when our train leaves and we're still in our hostel. We rush out and get to the train station and we have a little time. Our trusty Paris metro map on the iphone tells us it only takes 17 minutes to get there, so we have all that and more to spare. We laugh and giggle all the way there in our usual fashion and we reach Paris Montparnesse, where we have to take our train. I do a time check and it's 9.03, WAIT WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? 4 minutes till our train leaves??!?!?! I look at Lailin and she stares back and me. And we run for our lives.  A thousand 'Excuse moi s later, we find ourselves in a huge train station, domestic, international trains, trams and everything. Why in the world is this station so big?!?! We finally locate our gates and run towards it, only to be blocked by the gantries. We find a train conductor but he has on a confuzzled face and shakes his head when I ask him if he speaks English, oh, we're dead. Lailin puts on her most pitiful face and speaks in THE voice, and finally he lets us into the station and we find our train. To our great surprise, the train is still there. We run into it and thank the heavens and the Lord, still sweating from our run and very very very jittery from all of that. Never again. Never again. 

Dinan is absolutely beautiful and is everything I imagined it to be. We stroll around with nowhere in mind and discover the "old town" where all the action happens. We decide on a small little restaurant beside the river for dinner and I order an omelette while Lailin gets some mussels. It's THE best omelette that I've had in my entire life, and Lailin agrees. THE BEST OMELETTE. I don't think anything will ever compare to it.. It was so simple, ham and cheese and tasted heavenly. We head over to St Malo the next day and explore the little seaside town that is surrounded by castle walls. We catch sight of an old pirate ship, strolled around, walked on the beach with our bare feet, watched a couple of kids set off some fireworks as well as some footballers-to-be in action and had 3 fantastic crepes. Good times.

Paris: French Fries

Lailin and I flew in from Beauvais, a little far out from the city and only reachable by shuttle. A 30 euro shuttle. Way to make that money. But anyway, we get super eggcited, get to Montmarte (where our hostel is) and dump our bags in search of some great french food (french fries anyone?). We wander up and down the streets before settling on a restaurant and ponder on the menu for abit. But guess what, every damn thing is in French! Welcome to France where everyone is so proud of their roots and heritage and language and all that jazz that them English influences are no where to be found. But that's fine, it's a challenge and that challenge is ACCEPTED. So Lailin and I look at the menu and with the help of my (not so trusty) pocket French guide, we quickly learn the basic food words, poullet for chicken and beouf for beef. Easy peasy. What can go wrong with beef right? So we decide on some tasty garlicy snails for our starter and then we decide to randomly point to 2 dishes on the menu and see the surprise that beholds us. We get our escargots and nomz them up cause they're super yummy and get eggcited for the rest our food but then what comes next is just :O :O I get an uncooked hugeass beef patty (yep a beef tatare) and lailin gets sliced raw beef with parmesan cheese. Just got owned by some French food. I ate half of mine and so did Lailin... needless to say, the french fries were completely gone. 

French menus 1 Lailin and Evan 0. 

Oh life. The lemons. 

The rest of the days are pretty alright, we have loads of picnics which is great for our backpackers budget, cut the lines and use Elaina's student id to get free entry into the Versailles Palace and the Louvre, lock our friendship lock and threw the key into the river on only the rainiest day possible, lie on random grass patches when we're tired of walking, indulged in a night at the Moulin Rouge, hung out with Karissa and Vicky, met some Dutch boys in search of a drunken night and ended the day walking home in the piss like rain at 7am, and saw Paris for what it really was on the very last night of our trip: The City of Lights.

BONUSSSS: SEE WHAT MR BEAN FEELS ABOUT STEAK TATARE here.

AYDINBURH IN SKOATLAHND

Edinburgh was nothing like I had expected. I had expected loads and loads of grass, a castle right in the middle and cows everywhere. Yeaaah, don't know where I got that from. But then again, I always have funny ideas about everything so I guess this comes as no surprise.

Lailin's neighbour is getting married and I'm her +1 (of course, who else would it be :p) so we head for a small little wedding. It's a small little affair and I'm glad and very honoured to be a part of it. Dinner is at their favourite restaurant ever and I can see why, the food is RIDICULOUSLY good. I'm just drooling thinking about it....

Melissa and Elaina turn out to be extremely entertaining company, shingles and all :D We troop down the streets attempting to fake the scottish accent, trying very hard but failing and so we stick to the one thing we know, AYYYDINBURH IN SKOATLAHNDD. I feel like we probably said it more than a hundred times in the 2 days that we were there.... Mel tells us of the boys who got blown off the hills and cracked their skulls, lethal Scottish wind right there.

Cambridge

My cambridge journey starts on a bike, and aptly so. It's such a small little quaint town and everyone cycles everywhere, unless of course there's the torrential UK rain and it's pissing down on you... But anyway, I tighten all the straps on my backpack and off we go, braving the traffic, using our arms to signal (wtf never rode with only one hand before) and cycling up a damned hill. It's exercise all right.

Lailin always talks about how her life swung from one extreme to the other, from studying all day and all night to partying so hard that I wake up to the lovely sounds of her.... puking in the bathroom LAWL. We also made the mistake of going punting hungover, that combined with our inadequacies at pushing a pole into the damned ground... saying it was not a good combination would be the understatement of the year. We got stuck under the Bridge of Sighs (how aptly named) cause of the wind channel and for the life of us couldn't move at all. That ended with a 45 minute struggle and somehow, we managed to get to the other side and off we went. At one point, i jumped out of the river onto the river bank to pull us along LOL punting is too dam difficult!!!

Cambridge was a whole bunch of good calls, from cycling to an obscure location to watch the Rowing bumps and choosing the best spot to see all the drama, walking up to Castle Mound to catch the Trinity May Ball fireworks, getting slightly tipsy on rose in plastic bowls, running down to find a bathroom and begging the lady at Teri-Aki to let us use her bathroom, making the long trek back to Camb, garden parties and crazy Brit boys, riding a bull for the first time, flopping around in the bouncy castle, cycling to to Grandchester for some english tea and taking the scenic route home.

Cambridge was a blast. That, and I didn't even have to do the crazy studying to enjoy all the parties ;)

Check out Lailin's may week post here.

London: Bricklane

I texted Suyi on a spur when Diane, a backpacking friend from Aussie, asked about her. Turns out she was gonna be in London for half a day the day after... LOL surprise surprise everything seems to fall into place. We decide to head over to Bricklane to look at vintage stuff and be a little hipster, or as Lailin puts it "New age fun with a Vintage feel".

Brits really take busking to a whole new level, there was a dude who was playing an orange cone (lol) and it sounded like a trumpet, and then there's these 2 who rock out and dance on a rubbish bin. It wasn't the best music ever, I could probably think of many occasions where the buskers were more skillful and shit but this was fun. So fun. There were even random people dancing along and needless to say, there was alot of attention attracted.

London: No shame

Auds and I always seem to make plans, plans which fall through because we wake up late (lol what's new) or because something happens. So instead of the Camden Lock Market, we venture over to Primrose Hill instead for what Lailin describes as "the best view of London you can find!!!" We walk right to the very top and then we're done with just looking at the view and we're heading back down when we decide to take a single jumping shot. One shot that changes our whole afternoon. It is this shot that inspires Aud's mom to be an action shot photographer and us to be UKNTMs LAWLZA. It's probably the best thing ever to live by the no shame motto, I mean it's not like we're ever gonna be seeing these people ever again (we did get a shit ton of stares, they just wish they had the ballz).

Mark is in town the next day with his fambam and he takes a little time out to hangout with me while everyone else goes to the Louboutin museum. I don't go with them cause shoes are definitely my thaaaang. But anyway, we head over to PRIMARK (my new favourite hangout) and are just browsing when these bright animal jumpsuits come into view. We grabbed them off the racks, hoping to find some in small sizes (nope, only XXLs and XLs) and then waddle around in them for abit. We all know what my Halloween costume next year is gonna be!!!!!! Once again #noshame.

Just before I left, my aunt gave me a red packet with specific instructions: buy me tickets for the 2 million pound draw LET'S WIN BIG MONEY. That, and get some duck from Bayswater to eat. I just had to honor her wishes, it's not everyday that I receive a fatass red packet before a 6 week long backpacking trip. We got unlucky and London dealt its shitty weather, pissing on us all the way but it was worth it cause dayymmnnn that duck was good. And I live in Singapore THE FOOD HAVEN THE LAND OF GOOD FOOD. OH MAMA.

But yes, it was good.

Brighton: The Attack of the Seagull

 

One day after I touch English shores, we head over to Brighton to hangout with York. It's a quaint little place, a great place for a weekend and for retirement but there's really not much there. The seafood comes in ridiculous portions and we stuffed ourselves till we could stuff no more and then walked the stoney beach to the pier. Xingting decides to take off her shoes and in her princess-ness, proceeds to squeal in pain, it's a sight.

Xingting gets her "crab sticks!! so yummy omg so cheap!!!" and happily eats them when suddenly a seagull swoops down and almost gets a bite out of her crabsticks. Oblivious, she continues walking while York screams and runs towards her, chasing the seagull away and protecting the crabsticks simultaneously. If there's one thing these seagulls are, they're resistant. And vicious. Shingles squeals and this only stops when she hides beneath a shelter. LOL for a first day in Brighton.

We head to the pier and indulge in some childhood activities that apparently neither xt or auds ever took part in... (deprived childhood say whut). Bumper cars, carousel rides and a very scary 360 ride not meant for kids later, we're doubling over in laughter like how good company always ends in. We spend most of our time at a park in Brighton, Palmeira Square. Well, it's really more a patch of grass than a park really. We make daisy headbands, wedding rings, do cartwheels and just lie on the grass.

This is exactly how Summer should be.