Mel's visit, boarding the ferry to Helsinki

Today, Mel comes to visit from London. She's going to be staying with me for 4 days. Since I have no idea what Tourists can do for 4 days in Stockholm. I decide to bring her for a cruise to Helsinki, Finland as well.

So, after I pick her up at the bus bay at T-centralen. Mel comes visiting with 2 tiny bags. Don't ask me how come I thought she'd need to leave some belongings at my place before the cruise, but yeah.. she didn't need to. I had to go back and fetch my own stuff though, so we went back to my place first before leaving to meet the rest at Slussen. We were supposed to meet at 3.20 pm, and I made double sure that we were on time cos ZQ said we had to be on time for the bus. We reach around 3pm, and cos we're too early, we pick up some groceries to eat onboard the boat. By the time we return to the train station minutes before 3.20pm, the rest, SC, Jenley and Dom have arrived. I make a quick intro to everyone and then Dom asks "Did you bring your passport." He's asking just to be sure, like he's sure that we brought it, it's just for the sake of asking. And what should happen, but..." Sh**, I didn't bring the blasted passport!" Panic panic, alarm bells going off. How howW? Ship sailing at 5.15. Should have enough time right? The most take taxi? I then proceeded to rush all the way to Lappis to get my passport. SC, Jenley and Mel left for the ferry port first, while Dom and ZQ stayed behind to wait for me. Luckily, I managed to make it home and back in time, to the train station and then to the ferry terminal before the ship set sail. Whew! What a messed up start. Hopefully, things get better from here....

On the boat, we just walked around a bit, checking out the ship's facilities. We went onto the deck for a bit. But it was too darn cold to stay out for too long.



Enjoying the breeze and scenery

We played some card games and then had the cruise buffet for about 50 sing dollars.

Jag tycker om vår

Jag tyckar om vår = I like Spring! Yes... Spring is finally here. And in a place where you hardly see any sun and feel the cold for almost 3 whole months, spring is welcomed with open arms. You can tell spring is here and that the people here appreciate it so much when the sun finally comes out. People start lounging on the grass all over the place for no reason. They bring a picnic, have BBQs, simply chit chat or bring a book. There are flowers springing up everywhere. Unfortunately, my camera is down and I can't take photos just as and when I like it when I'm walking around. =(



Haha.. oh yeah.. Check out my basil plant. I'm kind of attached to it now. It's a tough little thing. Can actually survive under my terrible hands... I think I had it for more than a month now. Provides me with an adequate supply for basil for cooking. Each time I neglect it for a few days when I go on holiday, its leaves start to shrivel and I think it dead. But after I give it some water, it springs back to life within 2/3 hours. Magic! Sometimes, I make myself cook a dish with basil just so that I can give it a little prunning. Hmm.. actually thought of smuggling it home. . Check out the lettuce. Thats the lettuce I bought from the super market the day before going off to Copenhagen. After chopping off most of it for the burrito, Dom suggests that I plant it because it will grow. I wanted to finish eating it the next day before my trip, but dom said I'd have enough for another salad by the time I return, so.. yeah... experiment time.



Ahaha.. You can see how my lettuce looks after about 2 weeks. Well.. I didn't water it for the 4 days I was in Copenhagen, so half the chunk died and it was quite gross. But yeah.. check out the remainder now, you can see that it has actually grown taller! So yeah.. I didn't know I can grow my own lettuce. hahah! Okay, sorry for boring all those not interested in botany. It's just pretty fun to me, seeing my little plants growing by my window. That's the view from my window in Spring. Not much actually, you can see some little white and yellow wild flowers growing. Jenley can see deers and squirrels from her window cos its near a little forest.

Terrible Singapore STA Online service.

Okay, I have to admit, I thought I lost my STA ticket the other day, but i turns out I haven't. Anyway, the Singapore STA is super slow and inefficient.

I mailed both Stockholm and Singapore STA the exact same mail on the 10th of may:


Dear Sir/Mdm,
I was originally scheduled to be on this flight from Stockholm to
Singapore. I am an exchange student from Singapore who has been here since
January. The flight details are as follows:
TG961 8 july 2005 1435
TG403 9 july 0800
However, I cannot find my ticket. In addition, I now want to change my
previous booking from the 8th of July to the 30th of June instead. How do
I go about doing so? Thank you for your kind attention.
S8305377A
Ek Li Ling

and the following day I get this mail from STA Stockholm:

Hi Ek Li Ling,
if you have lost your ticket at if it is a student ticket we can help you toget a new one.We will nedd to get as much information from you as possible; Where did youby the ticket, when did you by the ticket and any other useful informatioyou can provide us with.The cost of getting a new ticket is 500sek.Without seeing a copy of your ticket I can't say if it is possible to tochange the dates. But as soon as you give me all the information I can startto find out.
Kind Regards
Linda

Such a friendly and helpful sounding reply. Nevermind a few spelling mistakes, English is not Sweden's main language anyway. I feel that any problem can be solved and they put an effort in giving me a good reply even though not in Swedish. I then correspond with her through a few mails for the next few days, about 4 mails and I completely forget about the other STA.

Today, on the 16th, almost an entire week after my mail, I get this lousy reply from Singapore.

Hi,Where did you brought your ticket from?
Jasmine Soh (on behalf of Leena who is on maternity leave)

Crap reply after a week! With one line of lousy english. I don't care if you are replying on behalf of someone on maternity leave. Talk about bad reputation for Singapore STA. I think they need to improve their online services. I'm sure you get thousands of email requests everyday, but it says a lot to the customer when you reply with a thougtful mail. For one thing, UOB Singapore is very good at that. Argh... and STA speaks about helping you change your ticket in just a few days.. Haha.. If your reply takes ages to come, I dont see how that's going to be done.

Jag är mycket trött, men är jag mycket glad.

Hurrah! the swedish exams are over. It wasn't as bad as I thought after all. Now that i'm all done with swedish, I realise that I'm going to forget half the swedish I have learnt by the end of the year and it has just purely been for the cultural experience or for the fun of it all. I'm going to try and sell my books and throw away my notes, so that I don't have to bring excess baggage home. Just so that I can prove to myself that I once had SOME knowledge of swedish, I'm going to reproduce my swedish essay written during the exam here.

Hej, jag heter Li Ling och jag är uttbytesstudent från Singapore. Jag bor på Amanuensvägen på Lappis i Stockholm. Det är en helg i Stockholm.

På morgonen, ringer vackarklockan inte och jag sover till cirka klockan elva. Sedan stigger jag upp och går in i badrummet. Jag duschar och klär på mig. Efter det träffar jag min god kompis, Dom, i koket och sedan lagar vi och äter lunch tillsammans. När vi har ätit lunch, brukar vi gå till torget nära Hötorgets stationen för att kopa några mat. Vi brukar köpa kött, bröd, ost, pasta och mjölk. Sedan tyckar vi om att handla på T-centralen. Ibland träffar vi några kompisar och vi går till en cafe och dricker kaffe och pratar. När solen skiner, ska vi spinga eller cykla i parken nära Lappis.

Dom och jag åker buss hem på kvällen. Vi äter också middag tillsammans. Sedan, tittar vi nästan altid på Tv. Vi tyckar om att titta en rolig film. Klockan tolv, går jag in i sovrummet för att läsa och skriva electronisk-post till mina familj och kompisar i Singapore. När jag är redan trött, lägger jag mig och slacker lampen. Efter en stund, sover jag.

Ibland, jag åka på semester enderna i Stockholm eller i ett annat land.

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to correct my own essay.. Sigh! Its sad knowing that its not perfect.

stigger --> stiger (pointed out by zhiqiang)
enderna --> endera (realisation on my own)