So where were we? Jef drove us down to Eindhoven from Olen. The journey itself was uneventful. Probably because I slept most of the one hour journey to Eindhoven. We reached Eindhoven at half past nine at night and soon after, we met up with Patricio (From Mexico) and Maria (From Russian) who hosted us for the night. That's the cool thing about surfing at people's place. We saved a lot in terms of accommodation.
Anyway, soon after settling down and putting our bags at Patricio's, we went for a drink and met up with another of Oli's friend, Faizal (From Indonesia). Oh, in Eindhoven, you see people cycling from one place to another every where. They even have neat designated streets and traffic lights just for cyclist. So, it was pretty cool. And Maria lent her bicycle to Oli and I so she could ride with Patricio and I could ride with Oliver. And it was quite romantic in a way; Oli riding the bicycle while I sat behind him and clung his waist to avoid from falling down. But after awhile, I could see Oli was struggling with the bike, and I felt bad for him. *Sigh*
Anyway, the cafe we went to was called Book Cafe. And it's exactly how you imagined it would be. Books everywhere; on the shelf, by the racks, or just stacked up to the ceiling. It was fun hanging out with Oli's friend. We talked, we drank and we were served with free platters of finger foods, courtesy from the cafe. Pictures from the night:-
The interior of Book Cafe
See the shelves behind me, filled with books
Some of the books are stacked from floor to the ceiling
Meet Maria, Patricio and Faizal. Guess who is who (which is pretty easy :)
:)
Just another picture of us.
Everyone was deep in conversation.
Very lovely couple, they are.
The next day, we went to TU Eindhoven (Technical University of Eindhoven) to meet up with the same bunch and an additional bunch of Oli's mate and had lunch at the University cafeteria. Food was okay. We hang out at the University until it was time to go to the Airport to take the flight to London.
One particularly fond memory of Eindhoven is us having fish and chip at the airport. We chose to sit outside the airport cafeteria to enjoy the sunset. That was nice and probably the highlight of our short trip in Eindhoven. :)
Us having fish and chip outdoors, eventhough weather was quite chilly.
Beautiful sunset
Soon after, our Ryan Air flight took off to London. The flight journey took about an hour. When we finally reached Airport Stanstead, London, we took a cab to Kingsbury, where Oli's aunt lived. And guess what, we were totally ripped of our pounds. Imagine paying 80 pounds for a 45 minutes drive. That's like 400 ringgit. Hmm, London is definitely expensive in that sense. When we reached Kingsbury, Aunt Pat(Oli's aunt) welcomed us to her humble home. By then, we were totally exhausted, so after a light snacks and brief conversation with Aunt Pat, we retreated early that night anticipating London the next day.
I'll write about London in the next post. This entry is beginning to sound more like a log report narrating events in sequence. Truth is, I am not feeling well and I'm too lazy to think deeper about the trip but at the same time, I felt bad for neglecting this blog over the Easter weekend that I felt I ought to write something.
Anyway, as I write now, I'm on my way to a speedy recovery. So, I hope I'll be as healthy as a horse in no time. :)
Till then, cheers!
