Capture the World on Paper.

was a smashing together of two extremes. fortunate and unfortunate. good and bad. sun and snow. laughter and pain. face and snow. \\

over the weekend, kehni, petra, jakub, ondrej n myself went to ondrej’s cottage in this town…whose name i cant remember. near a place called Rumburk. there was a ski slope there so kehni n i could try skiing for the first time!! it turned out to be a sequence of melodramatic turns. we left on saturday and reached there on saturday night, and had to turn on the heating system and water system for the cottage. in the meantime, we were freezing our butts off while waiting for Mighty Heater to warm up. the ground outside was covered with snow, which had been steadily falling since thursday. on Sunday morning, we woke up and decided to go for our ski experience. We had two cars (and lots of luggage n ski equipment), so Jakub drove Kehni n i, while Ondrej n Petra went in the second car. Jakub’s car pulled into the ski park’s carpark, and at that exact moment, a police car drove into the vacant lot next to us. They walked over and asked us for our passports. We were like…..whaat? why do we need our passports, we’re still in the Czech Republic! but apparently we did. We had unfortunately, left them back in Prague. so after a lengthy conversation in Czech of which i understood next to nothing apart from the fact that the police officers kept pointing to me and kehni like we were illegal fugitives, we discovered that we had to be brought via police car to the police station to verify our identities. By Police Car!! yes, you saw that right. Ondrej went with Kehni n me to the police station where we had to wait for 1.5 hrs, so that our records could be fished out of their dinosaur-ancient-laggy-computer database. After that, we were fined 500 crowns.each. That wasss..pretty upsetting, but after that we went back to the slope to try skiing. I found it slightly easier to master balance on skis, because it was similar to rollerblading; so Ondrej led me up the slope using the lift to try skiing down it. That might have been a mistake. I didn’t yet know how to turn and brake on the skis.. so i only knew, pretty much, how to balance and move forward. So that’s what i did! Down the initial gentler slopes, down the intermediate slopes, and eventually..down, TOO FAST, the steepest end slope. Down and down and down and all i could do was go straight down, so you could imagine it went pretty fast. Normally people meander down the slope in a zigzag fashion so speed is controlled. Oh, but i couldn’t. Its still kinda vivid in my mind. I remember hurtling down at scarily uncontrollable speed, digging my ski poles into the ground to try to effect a fall/because they were too long and were caught in between my skis, the stick rebounding off the ground and knocking me straight in my chin then my throat at high speed, then i fell down to the ground. I was in shock and discovered that i had lost my voice and my chin was bleeding. I didnt care about the blood so much, but the fact that i lost my voice really unnerved me! I didnt know your voice could be lost with an external hit. We went back to the cottage soon after, and i was in a really shaken/bad mood cos i felt awful and was scared about my throat. So ondrej had to take me to the hospital that night. It was a village hospital with virtually no one in it except the receptionist. She called a doctor to come, and after 15 minutes he came and told us he just came out of a surgery so he didnt have that much time. But he said my throat was fine and it was normal to lose my voice after an accident like that.. so that calmed my nerves. We went back to the cottage again, and i had to start making my architecture model which was due in 2 days. Ended up sleeping at 3+ am.

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The second day- Monday, we tried skiing again. At first i was super paranoid and phobia-clogged when i saw the spot where i fell and the steep slope at the end. This time round i behaved more like a beginner and did everything reaaaalllyy slowly and painstakingly. Until i learnt how to make the turns and control my speed and stand while on the edge of the slope. So in that controlled fashion, skiing was really fun on the second day! I dont think it was that fun for Ondrej cos he had to shuffle between helping me and coaching Kehni..haha. But i tried the slope 6 times with Petra/Jakub and Ondrej at separate turns. Now i know how my friends felt when i got them to rollerblade down the slope at East Coast Park and they ended up falling down. I understand the fear! hahaha. Its really freaky to go fast at breakneck overwhelming speeds. And im sorry, friends. Promise to be underwhelming next time.

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We were undoubtedly unlucky and extremely lucky at the same time; although i dont believe in luck, its just apt to describe it that way. Because after the police dropped us back at the ski slope after their pseudo ‘investigation’, they drove off! So we were the ONLY people they checked that day, and the ONLY people to get caught and fined. Goodness knows how many people skiing there didnt have their passports with them. I also had the privilege of visiting two places people wouldnt wanna go near with a barge pole- the police station and the hospital, in ONE day. However, on the bright side, we went on this trip without the slightest clue as to whether we could ski, because normally it doesnt snow in Czech Republic before Christmas! But this year was an extraordinary exception! On Sunday it was -17 degs (freaking cold but at least there was snow), and on Monday it was -7 degs (perfect weather for skiing). The snow was adequately padding our feet and our falls, and on the day we left, the temperature had climbed up to -1 deg and 2 degs in Prague..which meant that snow was melting and slowly turning into ice, which is horrid for any skiing venture. Temperature has been climbing and snow has pretty much all melted here in Prague..so we were really blessed to have had the opportunity to ski at all!

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Its Christmas dinner tomorrow (Czechs celebrate christmas eve and not christmas- which is slightly strange.) We’re gonna prepare soup and some dishes n brownies and join Ondrej’s family for dinner! Exciting We bought candles and hopefully some decoration tmr to instill some Christmassy spirit. I wanted to make pumpkin bread pudding, but i was searching Tesco with a toothpick and i couldn’t find any pumpkin/paste/powder of any sort- and even after finding out that pumpkin in czech is “dyne”, nobody in Tesco understood me when i asked them if they had it there. Some Czechs seem allergic to English. The moment you speak it, they feign deafness and walk away, or start shaking their heads and shrinking away. Haha. Merry Christmas, everyone! Almost cant believe i’ll be back in Singapore in 7 days. !

I will miss you.