Frisked

I know this is a long overdue post, but I’ve finally gotten around to writing it. I’m here! After all the preparations and meet-ups and everything else, I am here in the B-E-A-Youuuuu-tiful city of Krakow, Poland!

So. I was at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at around 4.30pm on the 28th of August, 2011. Dallied around a bit before checking in my luggage at 5.30pm. Remember how I said that my luggage limit was 20kg for check-in luggage and 5kg for hand luggage? Well, my check-in luggage eventually amounted to 24.5kg, hand luggage more than 10kg. Thank goodness they allowed us to bring a maximum of 25kg for check-in luggage, and they did not weigh my hand luggage. So guys, when you fly, just bring 25kg with you. XD

Between the time I arrived at KLIA and the time I boarded the plane, I received so many text messages, and as i later discovered, tweets, too. I can’t list all of you, but you know who you are, so thank you very much. Many thanks to Rachel, Lynton, Joan, Anna, Yee Jia and Bibiana for calling me. And how could I possibly leave out the people who came to send me off (apart from my parents) – Joshua, Deborah and I-Vonne. And most of all to my family who stayed till late at night just to see me off, and then drove back to BP in the wee hours. Thanks everyone. =)

We took a MAS flight from Malaysia to Frankfurt Germany. The flight lasted about 12 hours with the aeroplane reaching about 31000 feet. And as expected, I had to deal with a terrible bout of motion sickness. Aeroplanes have never been kind to me, but I’ve never had to rush to the bathroom just to vomit 3 times on a single flight before, probably because I’ve never had to take such a long flight. After we reached Frankfurt at around 6am (Central Europe time), we got our boarding pass printed by using the machines you see on the right.

We then proceeded to go through a rather stringent check by the custom officers. We had to remove our blazers and place them in little bins, take out everything in our pockets, take out our electronic gadgets from our bags and then put them through the scanner. As I walked pass the body scanner, I think my necklace set off the alarm and I had to wait for my turn to be frisked. No kidding. These people are serious. As the metal detector thingy went pass my neck it beeped like mad. I guess the officer was pleased with that (maybe because it proved that I didn’t have anything on me that wasn’t allowed in) so she just scanned a bit more and let me pass. Some other people even had to remove their shoes to be checked.

After that we rushed to the boarding area and got on a smaller flight to Krakow, Poland. I still wasn’t feeling too good from the previous motion sickness, so I didn’t eat anything at all on the second flight. The effects of motion sickness then plagued me for a little more than a day, leaving me feeling slightly sick and dizzy at times. I guess you can only puke so many times before your body goes haywire.

Despite all that, we arrived safely in Poland with our luggage intact. We were greeted by our seniors, Ming Lee, Charissa and Piravin, and two school office clerks, or something like that. They assisted us throughout our check-in at a student’s dorm, called OLIMP and took us around to introduce us to beautiful Krakow. It involved a LOT of walking, and I hope I’ll get used to all that walking soon, because the soles of my feet are begging to ride in a car instead of walking from one bus/tram stop to another.

For photos of the dorm, please visit this link. My room looks exactly like that. It’s small but nice. I’m hoping to find my own place by this week’s end, so just pray that everything works out fine.

So far I’ve seen several parts of Poland, and they are all beautiful. Absolutely love this place, but for some reason, no matter how breath-taking it is, I can’t seem to feel like I properly belong here. Maybe it’s because the people here look so different, or maybe it’s the superb climate, but I guess Malaysia’s still home. =)

EDIT: The link isn’t working. Methinks the webpage might be removed already. Too bad then, but it looks really comfy.

Pre-departure #3

The above is an aerial view of the aftermath in one part of my room after I dumped most of my things into my luggage bags. I assure you it was at least 2 times worse when I first started packing. I guess I can be very messy at times.

Packing has been a major pain. When my seniors said that they checked in less than 20kg, I somehow couldn’t being myself to believe them. I’m quite, quite sure they wouldn’t bluff me though.

I had my stuff weighed yesterday. My check-in luggage amounted to 26.09kg, hand luggage 13.70kg, plus an additional 5.25kg from the things that I absolutely have to bring but haven’t packed yet. The total weight of all that is heavier than my current body weight. No kidding. Even if somehow I find a way to bring it all over, I definitely can’t carry it all.

I think I packed too many pieces of clothes. I really can’t seem to figure out which to bring and which to leave behind. And then there are the memorabilia from family and friends which I really want to bring along, like the things in the photo to the right, and also a certain fake tiara from certain friends of mine. *I assure you I appreciate the spontaneity which drove you guys (girls) to buy it*

I never realised how many clothes I have until I started packing. I guess I’m more of a girl than anyone else would like to admit.

 

3 days and counting.