Letter from Europe

Found this letter from Emue about her holiday in Europe. Meant to post it ages ago. But, better late then never:


You been to Switzerland and Germany?

Switzerland is undoubtedly a very beautiful and peaceful country. Very high standard of life. But really --- too high. Things are crazily expensive. You can never have a HK$ 25-40 proper lunch there. For a proper lunch, you have to pay HK$150 and the food is nothing extraordinary!! We had a Thai curry dinner at Zurich and got the same thing we always have in HK but ended up paying HK$400 instead of HK$150, which is the amount we always pay at the Foreign Correspondent's Club. Crazy!! And a Filet-O-Fish burger at McDonalds is four times the price it is in HK!!! Crazy!!!!!

And the taxi fares!!! Traveling by taxi is a luxury there. Just like the distance between Central and Wanchai, you will lose an arm and leg to afford the price.

Michael had to work for the first three days so I toured around Lausanne on my own. It's a very beautiful little city indeed! And, compared to the French, the Swiss are much nicer. Remember how, when we went to France two years ago, we came to hate the French because their manners sucked and they were all arrogant bastards. In Lausanne, they aren't like that at all. Swizz people have good manners, enjoy life and the pace of life compared to HK is entirely different. While they relax, we always rush.

The weather sucks however. I was also really lucky becasue I went to see the lake on the only sunny and warm day the whole time. :-)

Then, after Michael's business was over, we went to Zurich. A busy and gorgeous city but we came at the wrong time because it was completely overwhelmed with Euro 2008 fever!! Fans all over Europe could be found at the stadium and they raised the roof there! We were told that most of the hotels have been fully booked. But the weather was quite terrible. Raining most of the time and SO COLD to me. You can't make me believe that it's SUMMER when the temperature is around 14C.

After Zurich, we went to Germany and headed to Mosbach. I was very excited to go see this little town for three reasons:

1) It's Michael's hometown. He's born and rasied there. I've long wanted to see what it looks like.
2) I longed to see Michael's mum again. She is indeed a very nice and kind and motherly lady. A second mum to me. Everytime she phones Michael and asks about me I really feel very warm inside. Was very moved when I received her call on my birthday.
3) You know Michael's dad passed away more than 20 years ago in a car accident. I have always wanted to visit his dad's grave. It's a silent respect to the dead though he never knew me.

So there we were, in Mosbach finally!! Received a big hug and bunch of flowers from Michael's parents at the train station. Michael pointed where the graveyard was and I was really surprised. Do you know that Chinese do not like to live close to places like graveyards? We believe that it will bring bad luck or feel uneasy with the kinda haunted place. Well, I could not believe the graveyard was just a 30 seconds walk from the train station and only 2 minutes walk from Michael's home!! I did not have any uneasy feeling but it's an eye-opening experience having such a big cultural difference.

We spent a week there. Every day we drove mum to her workplace and then we used her car to tour around.

Of all the places I saw, the one I loved most was Heidelberg!! I fell in LOVE with Heidelberg. It has classic beauty. Old but absolutely beautiful. Perfect. And there's a university there and really enjoyed seeing young people enriching the life of this city. We went to visit the ruins of a castle there. Heidelberg is the must-go city in Germany. Most of the time we went the sauna and spa there. Very relaxing and and area is sooo big. Everybody has to be naked in there and I think that's why Michael likes this place soo much :-)

Ate a lof of homegrown berries. Maybe nothing special to you but it's the very first time I got to eat homegrown fruits!

Thanks so much, Emue, for letting me post this! Lovely letter and I now have Heidelberg on my Must-See list.