In about 11 hours time I will be catching the shuttle to the airport with my life in Budapest all packed up. There has been a heavy snowstorm the entire weekend. I just checked the forecast and seems that tomorrow the sun will shine. I hope that the forecasters are accurate this time round. This has been the scene the whole weekend. Yesterday on the way to church I was actually trudging through calf high snowdrifts. Alot of hopping around like a rabbit coz of the mix of ice, slush and snow. Even last week, the mini icebergs have been floating around the Danube....


Someone asked me if I would be sad going. The answer is yes I'll miss the city, but I definitely will not miss winter and the bKV controllers... and I will miss miss miss miss the food for sure.... I'm still thinking of the chestnut cake that Gina made for my farewell dinner, as well as the pieces I stole from Nicole last night hehe :P. At church yesterday, after mass, I quietly whipped out my camera to take a picture of the place that I've been worshipping at for the past year. Hah, for rememberance sake.... It was a really wierd thing saying goodbye. Guess I'm not very good at them. Having people come forward and ask you the same question over and over again, "So! What are your plans next.". I think the best goodbyes are when you make pacts to meet each other again, even when it's in 3 years time or something like that... then it's not a goodbye. It's a see you later in a sense. Goodbye in English is such a conversation killer sometimes. Somehow I prefer saying goodbye in Chinese. Better to explain it in Chinese 再见的意思其实是可以再一次见到对方。所以我们用再见这个词的时候是在想我们会再见到批此的时候，而不是永远不见的意思。So in any case, that was that.


Playing around in the snow on route to Francis place for games and food. Us girls got into a snowball fight on the way there while the men just walked along... bleah...and we weren't exactly wearing snow friendly coats.... damp coats and gloves and wet boots followed when we finally stamped into the warm building...

In all, it's been a crazy crazy year. Hard to believe it's all coming to an end. And yet in some way, I'm glad it is. Packing up a year of stuff has brought that focus around. I had to throw so much stuff away that it's always a pity. I need to stop, be able to go out and buy things without having to worry about whether they'll be able to fit in the suitcase later on. I want to be able to buy a book and not have to deliberate about whether I can afford to stuff it into my bag or do I have to give it away to colleagues just because I can't take them back with me even though I loved them very much? The lugging of heavy bags by myself definitely needs to stop too....I wonder how long my back can take it haha.... I've pushed it several times already this year.
So I think effectively, this would be the last post. I may come again to update pictures from previous travels, as I still waiting on some from friends... but officially this blog has served its purpose and will close. Some have asked me whether I will continue to blog... So I'm wondering if a re-assimiliation experience back to my home country (after being away for 7 years) will be worth blogging. I'll have a think about it first. But till any updates are posted.... that's the end of girl in a foreign land :)

Ok, so despite all the train drama, I did walk all around the city and exploring the streets. Pic above is the Genova PP station, the starting point of my train troubles LOL....
Ok, so Genova is also known for its focaccia bread, and they have many cafes like the one below selling all different types of focaccia breads and pizzas with different topings.... It was like eating every 4 hours just so that I could try something new...


The thing about Genova is its architecture. You could spend hours walking around the city on a lecture on art history....





Palazzo Ducale: which is known as the cultural, historical and monumental heart of the city. Built at the request of the government of the republic at the end of the 16th century.


Cattedrale de San Lorenzo: Back, front and close up. It's built on a pre-existing romanesque structure with black and white stone stripes. Inside is the treasure of San Lorenzo and the "Sacro Catino", said by some to be the holy grail.





Portico Antico- the old port. This is where the big Biosfera is , which hourse a rain forest ecosystem. The Aquarium is also here, which is one of the biggest in the world. But personally, for 18 Euros, quite a bit of a disappointment for me.... I liked the one in Sydney better... but each to their own yah... I'm sure many Italians would love to disagree with me..







Museo della Lanterna (Lighthourse museum in the distance)

So this is the city where all the train scheduling headaches started.... It's not the fault of the city, but it was coming to and leaving this city where all the shit happened... Genoa... or Genova... So was supposed to take this fast rapid train from Bologna to Milan to catch my train to Genova. There was a half an hour window btn the 2 connecting trains... but hello hello... fast rapid train could not be any slower and managed to arrive past my connecting train time... ok grr... luckily quick thinking sent me running to the milan ticket office where I queued up to get a replacement ticket.... called my ex teacher... "Hi Jean, missed my train, won't be in Genova till an hour later so can't have lunch..." text text text back... ok... decided that I would drop my bags in Genova and then come see her in Boligasco, a village like 30 mins train ride out of the city and we would hang out in the afternoon... ok... so by this time, on the train, I'm pretty calm... and pretty convinced that this is a big test of my patience that God is giving me... so I'm like ok whatever... see how everything goes.... Eventually, i make it to Boligasco... no Jean... ok... call call.... "Jean?" "Yah?" "I'm here... I can't see your waving hand..." "What! you're here!!!" etc etc.. suddenly I hear Gen Gen! Can't remember whether it was through the phone or public screaming... but I see her on a balcony behind me and phew... never been so glad to see her... Genova was a delightful 13 degrees!!! I was so used to bunddling up for freezing temperatures that I was actually sweating a little underneath or those layers.....
So.... haven't seen my teacher for like 7 years.... and it was just so funny how we could easily talk and have a conversation like we just met each other yesterday..... Oh... and she was so sweet... she made for me some Lingurian pasta with pesto sauce.... simple but very taste food..... Spent the afternoon catching up with one another and later on went for a walk around her village together with her kids...
Boligasco pictures...


There was this incident which was quite funny.... a family friend's son tried to kiss my teacher's daughter, and the moms were encouraging her to let him do it, and she just flatly refused everytime (No!), sending the young man into tears. I could not help but be amused watching it... definitely a potential heartbreaker...

Sunset over the coastline...


Snapshot together! Can't believe she still looks the same after so many years...

Jean's youngest daughter, Tegan... took this quick surprise shot while mother and daughter were off somewhere... :P





Lingurian foods for dinner... there was like Farinate (chickpea pancake), Pumpkin pie (Savory kind, and one of my favourites), bacon rolled meats.... I was so stuffed after that...


So now is the best train story that you guys may have heard in a while... long story short, made an appointment to meet up with my teacher again to pass her stuff to bring back for me to Singapore since I knew that it would be helpful for my packing. Ideally, I would take an early morning train, drop my stuff and head back to the city to explore... Oh well... who would have known that my intended train would have been cancelled, and had wait for 90 mins before the next one, then when it arrived at Boliagsco, the doors bloody hell did not open!! Ok... so I had to walk back from the next train stop back to her village (so imagine me like lugging a big bag and walking 20 mins on the road).... Arrive at Jean's house, check train time, ok, chat, ok.. suddenly we hear the train horn.. oh shit... run to the train station, reach the train doors, but they bloody hell wouldn't open!!! ANd the train runs off... By now I'm hysterical with laughter... This is most bad luck with trains I've had in an entire YEAR......so I walk back to Jean's house... and next train is not in like 90 mins... suddenly she has an inspiration, " let's go to that restaurant I was meaning to take you to yesterday for lunch! And we can make it in time for your train on our way back.." ok... I decide, what's there to lose? Just another missed train? "LET'S DO THIS!" Ok, a quick scramble to get her things, strap tegan to her pram, and wheel her quickly across the road, the whole giggling about the entire situation... and the funniest thing ever, Jean went to ask the Italian waitress whether we would be able to be served on time because I had to leave at one. So the waitress shouts to the other end of the restaurant where the boss is standing, "hey! can we serve food here on time? This girl here needs to leave at one!" Boss shouts back, "Yes we can do it! You can leave by one!" SO all this is done in Italian, but with all the finger pointing and shouts of one, I figured out that they're referring to me... and suddenly the table beside us (full of guys) shouts, " yeah she's needs to leave at one!" I am utterly embarassed to my toes and I am unable to look at them... I'm like OMG.... and Jean is so amused by the situation, she tells all her friends who calls, " my student missed her train!!!".... Funniest story ever... so I'm pretty sure now that I'm known in Boligasco as either, "the girl who missed her train." or "the girl who has to leave by 1pm."





So I took the name card of the restaurant, it's La Risacca and we had the set lunch, but it was really really good! I had rabbit and beans for my main. My first time trying rabbit, which turned out to be a really tender meat, but lots of bones....
Addy of place (family friendly apparently):
La Risacca
Bogliasco (alla Spiaggia)
In Via Colombo 21

I think it's only apt that Bologna has a food post, so it's like the eating capital of Italy. And most people who know Italian foods would be familiar with the cuisine from Bologna. Unfortunately, no eating pictures of foods I ate coz I was always busy eating and only remembering at the end when the food was gone. I actually think that was the first I ate fresh pasta and had food cooked to order.... I've been spoiled forever... Italian food overseas will never taste the same again..
Below: Tortellini with ricotta/spinach/pork is the best... especially with ragu sauce...





Bolognese snack/dessert..




Market place behind the fake facade... the amount of variety of foods they had despite it being winter was pretty surprising...