Pretty things and curious sights

was quite disappointed this morning cos didn't get into the photography class; but the thesis class in afternoon made me totally intimidated and stressed and in some sense it was a small consolation cos i realize i need to spend so much time on my research, esp given a class of seemingly very competent classmates.... sigh... one goal this sem is to try to read more widely and try to be less unknowledgeable... sigh. and right now life seems to be in a mini mess...
oh well. anyway, here's today's share of pictures. enjoy.

Pretty gate near Palais de Papes, Avignon

Lovely benches, Bratislava castle

ah. Time for a ham and cheese sandwich....

Candles in tinted jars, street stall in Ljubljana

no idea what this is; but they tried to sell it to me... (in a friendly way; unfortunately i didn't understand what they were trying to tell me) (Zagreb)

Beggar in streets, Prague

HEAPS of bread, supermarket in Bratislava

Flowers!

now for the non-tourist attraction pictures.... somehow the pics i hav below all show roses; i really don't fancy roses that much; it's just coincidental... (more to come next time! sorry i'm sounding as if ppl are keen to see my pics... =P)

a day at sch made me realize how much i'll miss this place after i graduate... and discovered that i could still undertand about 70% of what my sensei was talking about and felt really happy! but i have so much catching up to do. =( seems like watching anime did help a little though. and i hope i get into my Visual Studies 181... if so i will end up at the end of a semester with a mini portfolio of ("self-developed") black and white pictures... how cool is that =P

Rose potpourri (i think) in shop along street, Nice

Cute bunches of roses at flower market, Nice

Roses at flower market, Nice (actually the artificially-dyed ones are rather ugly...)

FAKE roses near market square, Zagreb. (ok i dun like fake flowers, but somehow they just 'popped out' at me when i was scaling the steps and so it was pleasantly surprising....)

Trip Highlights

La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona (Gaudi never managed to finish his project)

Park Guell (another of Gaudi's creations), Barcelona

Palais de Papes, Avignon, France

Beach at Nice, France

On the way up to Casino, Monaco

University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Skofja Loka (oldest town in Slovenia but very picturesque)

unknown structure, Zagreb, Croatia

Statue on Charles Bridge, Prague, Czech Republic

Glimpse of the Danube River and bridge from the Bratislava Castle, Slovakia

Home!
am finally home and somewhat jetlagging and thus blogging at an unearthly 4.45 am. United's Europe flights always seems to have ice cream and better food than its Asia-Pacific flights and i wonder why that is the case. strangely enough, it really feels like coming home though this is not really 'home'... i realized that i took a whopping 600 or so pictures (many of which are lousy though) and it's certainly not possible to upload everything so will thematically upload some over the next few entries.

after spending a night in Bratislava, in a noisy and slightly scary dorm room with seven (or six; if i assume that zy was not guilty) snoring males, i was really relieved that the rest of my hostel stays were certainly nowhere near the somewhat unpleasant experience last night. not that it was REALLY unbearable, but just somewhat unpleasant =P the best (and best value for money, too) hostel was perhaps the one in Prague, which had a most comfortable bed... and an extremely warm and soft down comforter!!! tonight´s room is alright; but certainly not worth the 30 Euros i had to fork out... oh well. no choice; this was the only one i could find online. anyway, am flying back tmr afternoon! excited to start a new semester again, but extremely unprepared for school =P