Christopher Rowe

The fourteen hour flight from Zurich to Singapore was a breeze of a flight. Flying Singapore Airlines A380, I immersed myself with the onboard entertainment system and drinks, while Michelle slipped a sleeping pill and slept the flight away. To my surprise, arriving into Singapore I was full of energy, despite having stayed up for most of the flight watching films Resident Evil, Ted, Pixar’s Brave and TV shows Doctor Who, Thin Blue Line, Big Bang Theory and TopGear. It all went downhill very quickly though when I let my head rest on the hotel bed waiting for the shops to open at 10am – I very quickly became over tired.

Since we’re returning to Singapore for a week in a few months time we didn’t over exert ourselves, after a sleep in we had some breakfast and visited Kinokuniya – one of the largest book stores I have ever seen. After about twenty minutes of walking I had over three hundred dollars worth of books in my hand. Coming to the unfortunate realisation that I would never be able to fit the extra purchases in my luggage, I narrowed my selection down to a mere three books, promising the others I’d return for them in Easter.

With nothing else left to do we wandered back into Clarke Quay where we were staying and set up base at the local Hooters, sitting out on the water as a tropical thunderstorm rolled through, enjoying a bucket of beers and reminiscing our six weeks abroad.



Interlaken and Salzburg ranked at the top of the list of our favourite destinations, coincidently (or perhaps not) both of these featured majestic views of mountain ranges. Paris and Budapest also ranked rather high on our lists, which ironically left all the places in Germany towards the bottom, ironic since this trip came about primarily to visit Germany.

That said, I really did enjoy my time in the various cities of Germany. I really enjoyed Hamburg and Berlin and the snow that we experienced throughout Germany made it very special too. By the end of the German leg of the trip though I was well and truly over Germany. Despite the unique characteristics and history of each city, the German capitals all started to blur together and I became desperate for a change of scenery which the other cities mentioned previously all provided.

Out of all the places visited, I would definitely love to revisit Switzerland and Budapest. Switzerland; particularly in winter, to experience more of the Alps and spend a few days skiing. Budapest simply because our stay was mostly shrouded by fog and we didn’t quite see enough.

Fog in Budapest aside though, I count myself extremely lucky to of had such a great run with the weather in Europe especially since we were touring in winter. It could have quite easily been rainy and foggy everywhere as it was a few years ago at that time of year. In 2010 Europe didn’t see snow til January, in 2012 though, we received good consistent downpours of snow from as early as late November.

As far as transport goes, the trains were a great way to get around in Europe, both domestically and internationally. At the end of the trip both Michelle and I got quite comfortable with ten minute transfers between trains, arriving at platform 12 and making it to platform 2 with time to spare. In fact, both of trains in and out of Interlaken had the smallest connection times and despite all our luggage we made them easily.

The quantity of luggage though was a concern with trains. Some trains we were lucky with, with each car sporting a luggage rack at the front of the carriage for suitcases, other trains our luggage was inconveniently placed in narrow hallways or out by the door. We caught a variety of train types, the two most common being the ICE trains and the RailJet trains. From memory, the RailJets had extra allowances for luggage – if you were guaranteed this with each train leg, it wouldn’t matter how much luggage you were carrying about, the ICE trains on the other hand were not as fun.

Ahh crap… I am home!