Summer 2k16 babyyyyy! I'm back and brown as ever! This post is dedicated to the 27 lovely human beings who made this trip so awesome: 10c class and my two awesome lady teachers Ms. N & Mrs. M!
First of all though, listen to this song while reading!:)
Ciao! That's Italian for "Hello!"
After having the exams off our backs, we only had the rest couple of months as a class together and since there's nothing school-related for us to do until we received the exam results, we took a trip to Tuscany, Italy! This trip was planned since the 8th grade. It was after all a tradition to take a farewell trip for the graduates. And we planned for going abroad. Two parallel classes went to Berlin, one went Camping somewhere in the German/Italy border and another one went to South France.
We chose to go outside Germany but the costs were really reasonable. In fact, even cheaper than the others! This is because our class organized a charity project/event and we raised a huge load of money. 50% went to the charity, 45% went to each of the 25 school classes which participated, and 5% went to our class! That 5% really laid back on the costs. I thought I couldn't go because my family wouldn't want to afford it, but since it was almost half the normal price, they did.
So that's the background of the trip. Now on to the main event!
Like the other four 10th grade classes, the trip took place from the 30th of May until the 3rd of June.
The weather wasn't that pretty when we met up at 6am at school. The bus was late. We left at half past 7! Quite behind schedule, but we didn't really have anything planned (except dinner) on the first day.
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| The bus ride took about 8 hours. Quite busy traffic but we survived. The bus ride was loud and sweet. (we munched on a lot of things) |
Oh side note, btw. I'm not allowed to post pictures of people on the internet without their permissions. since asking for one is too much effort, I'm just gonna try my best to not post any of my friends' faces and not get sued for exposing privacy..
Phones were up and girls were snapchatting as we arrived around 4pm at our by-the-beach-three stars-hotel in Marina Di Pietrasanta. The hotel was kind of a disappointment but the weather was nice when we arrived. We got settled and since some of my classmates haven't ever been on a sea-beach in their lives... Bitches went to the beach right away.
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| the beach was private the sand was ok... |
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| but honestly the sea was really disappointing. i didn't even bother to put on my swimsuit. ew. |
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| There was also a pier nearby. The boys had a photoshoot session there. |
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We spent the rest of the day just exploring the small Italian town, bought snacks at a Swiss-branch supermarket Coop and getting settled.
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(Yes, I usually hang out with the boys. The girls are fun but most of the times not my fun.)
We paid for half pension at that hotel, which means breakfast and dinner were included. I had my vegetarian dinner, so did Ms. N and my girl Julia didn't get her vegan meal. All three of us had different diets than the others so we sat at one table with 3 other people as well. We couldn't catch the sunset, it was somehow always cloudy after dinner. But I spent my first evening at the beach with two friends of mine and since it was simply a wide empty space... we really enjoyed the peace for a moment.
DAY 2: Pisa!
I heard that Ms. N and about 8 boys went out jogging at 6. It was under 10 degrees and they jogged hard. I wanted to go but I liked sleeping better. And during breakfast I heard that they jogged 10km by the beach and it drizzled but they said it was nice. Oh and breakfast wasn't really bomb, a lot of us complained. I'm not that much of a breakfast person, if only they know what kind of breakfast Indonesians usually have... I mean, I didn't get bubur or lontong sayur but I'm complaining :)
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| We drove half an hour to Pisa and walked 15mins to the actual park. |
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| no, I didn't do that touristy picture of holding the tower. |
We had a lovely lady tourgide who showed us the place and its history after that we had 4 hour free time to room around in at-least-3-people-groups, have lunch, shop etc...
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| we (my group of 7) walked a lot... |
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| and after a long walk, we met chilled a bit, since we were half an hour early from the meeting time. |
We drove back, took some more pictures by the beach and had dinner. Now here comes the exciting part!!
Julia is a vegan right and that troubled the kitchen and also made our other slightly older teacher Mrs. M curious. So while we were having dinner, Julia talked about her story to the table, but mostly to Mrs. M, who really was interested and listened in. Me on the other side was casually having my vegetarian meal and even sharing some with Ms. N who sat across me and we chat as well. She's the coolest teacher I've ever had. She's our class teacher since grade 9.
Everyone finished their dinner but Julia hasn't finished her story.
It was only me, Julia, Ms. N, and Ms. M at the dining room and...
Ms. N: "So they're not done yet..."
Esther: "Yeah, it's probably still going to take a while."
Ms. N: "Well I don't want to just stay in this room so what if we just go outside?"
Esther: "What do you mean?"
Ms. N: "Why don't we just sit at bar somewhere in town, have a drink and they can continue talking there. Would you be okay with that?"
Esther: "Oh... Yeah of course!"
Ms. N then explains it to Mrs M, in front of Julia as well, at first Julia preferred to chill with the others by the beach but then I comvinced her to go with the teachers instead. She was down.
Mrs. M: "But I'm not going outside with sweatpants! I'm changing first. It's cold outside anyway so I have to take my jacket from my room."
Ms. N: "Okay, let's say in 10 mins in the lobby? girls?"
Esther, Julia affirmed in unison and went to their room.
Then we were excited and had this conversation about what was going to happen and lolololol julia if youre reading this BITCH I MISS U HAHAH
Then we met the two ladies in the lobby, went for a walk to the bar and had talks. Julia was still telling stories to Mrs. M and Ms. N and I on the other side... we were like having an awkward date. wow. seriously. I can't help but to cringe whilst typing this HAHA.
Then we found the bar, Ms. N ordered a glass of white wine, Mrs. M ordered an alcohol free beer + sprite and Julia and I ordered bottled Mojitos.
Two of our dopest teachers, Julia and me... in a bar... talking... drinking... the experience was inexpicable! So truthful, so open, so chilled... argh. Tuesday night. This was the highlight of my trip. Because you know, there are just people you share a straw of Boba drink with, and there are people you share a bottle of wine with. :))
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| We then bumped into Deda, Jennifer and Viola, accompanied Viola smoking a cigarette and went back to the hotel. |
DAY 3: Firenze!
The usual disappointing breakfast and the weather didn't look quite nice as we were about to leave. But I had faith, dressed summery and try to look cute in the pictures.
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| The drive took longer than to Pisa. And I took a nap. |
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| The sky was OK when we arrived... |
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| We again had a tour guide and Florence was kinda packed that day. I mean, it is the city side anyway. The architecture is pretty!! |
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| This is the famous dome/church building in Florence. This is where we ditched the tourguide because he was literally talking crap. About De Niro, Al Pacino, Football and other irrelevant stuff. lol. |
Then it was free-time. The girls were excited to shop because this is kinda the city-shopping part of Tuscany and we had 5 hours of free time.
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| Some of us had lunch together and we ordered Pizza (some had pasta, Ms.N had a huge bowl of salad)!! Because when in Italy, right?;) I had a good 29cm Napoli. (credits to the waiter who was wearing Yeezys, anddd please don't sue me you all look pretty) |
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| Went outside for gelato! (ice cream in Italian) |
After lunch the group again split up and... the thrill of hunt begins. Our two teachers wanted to shop so hard. And since we didn't really have anything planned we tailed them.
This is where I got useful,
these Germans I'm with, they don't really have talent for bargaining. So I helped them out. #AsianPride
Ms. N got two leather bags for 160€ when each of them actually cost 135€ and 90€. She thanked me quite enough. ;) BUT THEN SHE GOT BULLIED FOR BUYING LEATHER BAGS WHEN SHE'S ACTUALLY A VEGETARIAN HAHAHAH. anyway. lol.
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| Apparently that was the famous Florence Brige. |
The rain started GUSHING down (is that even a thing?) by then. Thankfully I brought a hoodie with me ... didn't take much pictures after that.
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| And then we drove back. |
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| I brought my camera to the dining table because I wanted to film some eating footage for the private Vlog we made.. Took a picture of my dinner LIKE A LEGIT ASIAN while I'm at it. ;) It was mozarella, cream risotto, extremely salty potato thing and bland stirfry beans. |
DAY 4: Cinque Terre!
(first of all, change song!)
It was raining hard when we had breakfast, which was very disappointing because the plan today was having boat rides in Cinque Terre! Again, I had faith so packed up a pair of shorts and wore a sleeveless top. Because it was kinda chilly I went there with jeans on and had a shawl with me. The others, however, they really prepared for a cold day outside so..go figure.
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| So we drove to La Spezia, which is the harbour to get boats to the Cinque Terre spots. As we arrived there.... The sun started shining, it went from 15 degrees to about 25... :) whilst waiting for the ferry all I did was looking for a restroom to change. |
 Since the sea by the hotel we were staying was awful (at least for me it was), I would be lying if I didn't say that I was REAL happy and emotional when I saw blue sea water. It reminds me of nothing else but Indonesia. Reminisced Lombok trip the whole day of Cinque Terre :(  |
| The sky was happily blue, the coulds were white and puffy... I was so happy! |
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| Of course we didn't have our own boat. We shared with some tourist groups and even bumped to a German class I don't know where from! |
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| The colourful buildings were so prettyy!! |
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| So to those of you who don't know, The Cinque Terre is a string of centuries-old seaside villages on the rugged Italian Riviera coastline. In each of the 5 towns (Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso), colorful houses and ancient vineyards cling to steep terraces, fishing boats bob in harbors and trattorias turn out seafood specialties along with the Liguria region’s famous sauce, pesto. -Wiki. ;p |
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| Village-part of Italy is way prettier! It's so original. Kampung gitu. jalanannya mepet-mepet kayak lagi di Ghetto. |
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| This is my favorite shot of the village in Monterosso! The buildings so prettyy |
Our tourguide this time wasn't an a$$ like the guy in Florence. The lady's name is Francesca, with a thick Italian accent. She spoke both German and English. Really nice and showed us the best spots of Monterosso. So we went for a hike.
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| Hiking, which made the boys really hot. hehehehe. |
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| The tiny village of Monterosso from above. It smelled of jasmine as we hiked up and when I saw the fields. The combination of that scent and the view again really remined me of Indonesia, Bali, specifically. |
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| And credits to Leon for taking this cheeky photo of me :3 |
When the tour ended, it was midday, we were really exhausted, some of us actually had a really bad sea sick and didn't go hiking. We had free-time afterwards. The others went looking for food, finding a chill spot to throw up, etc... I didn't really want to spend more money on having lunch, since Ms. N also already gave me couple protein bars... Jachim also didn't have anything in mind, we were tired so we thought of taking a nap somewhere.
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| Francesca said the more quiet part of Monterosso is through this tunnel and so our hunt of a sleeping spot began there. |
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| And we did find a nice cliff!!! |
So yeah we did some photoshoots at first...
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| Then we turned some music on and took a nap for a solid 45mins. Just about time before we had to meet up and go back. |
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| Anything peculiar? |
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| Such an interesting picture I took at the harbour in Monterosso! Haha :) Poor boys and their rainy day outfit in 30degrees weather. |
Afterwards, we got on a boat and drove to Riomaggiore for an Ice-Cream stop! Mrs. M once promised us in class that she'll treat us ice cream and due to the bad weather we couldn't find the right time to go out for ice cream during class... so she said she'll treat us in Tuscany trip! And she fulfilled her promise.
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| The line at the Ice Cream Parlour. |
As we arrived back in Marina Di Pietrasanta we still had two hours to kill before class picture session at the pier and dinner at a local restaurant. So we changed and I played volleyball with Lukas, David, Sidney, Deda and Jennifer.
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| Abchlussklasse 2016 in Bella Italia! |
We then had dinner, which was hell for me. I had to wait 2 hours for my pizza to arrive. After everyone left already. Such a disappointment at that restaurant.
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| Sorry guys.... i didnt take any other picture during dinner that night haha |
There was music in the restaurant and the others also went dancing. the two missus were there.
Anyway, for me, the night ended with two glasses of white wine, caipirinha, sip of sex on the beach and a peach vodka shot. Gerold piggy backed me back to the hotel and I fell asleep at half past 2am.
DAY 5: Journey back home.
I didn't take out my camera on the last day. Call time was at 7am and we left at half past 8. My bus seatmate the journey back home was Jachim and thankfully Chris, who sat in front of me, had mobile network and tethered WiFi for the bus so I was occupied with my phone. Funny memory about the journey back was when everyone was tired, Mrs. M sat up from her seat and tried to wake up everyone by singing the songs we sang on the journey to Italy and also waking up the loudest people who were tired and even asleep!! She tried, but it didn't work, so everyone continued sleeping. :))
Arrived back in Weil am Rhein ahead of schedule. And it was sentimental. The great news was that when we arrived, I found out that I got accepted to this Business High School in Leipzig. I told that to the two missus and they were really happy for me.
Tuscany trip 2016 ended really well.
It was a fun, in some parts annoying, but was still a really amazing experience with my classmates. I love that farewell trip. Thankyou friends. Legit going to miss y'all!
I had an awesome vacation to Italy by myself (w/o my family) this summer. Thank You Lord for that opportunity.
(PS: i didn't proofread this post. sorry for the grammar mistakes!)
