Saturday, September 29, 2007

When East Meets West in a City Where North Meets South

It's been a while since my last post. All of those preparations and expensive internet access halt me for a while. Now here I am stranded in the middle of nowhere. Okay this post will be dedicated to my journey and my first experience living abroad.
It was my first experience traveling by plane. I arrived at Cengkareng airport in the afternoon. After fasting break I entered the passenger-only area at the airport. Kind of nervous at the time coz it's my firt time traveling abroad, first time traveling by airplane and I was gonna do it alone. The flight I took was Jakarta-Dubai and Dubai-Munich. But everything ended up perfectly.
On my flight to Dubai I got companion from two friends who were going to hamburg. It was nice though. We wait our next flight at Dubai International Airport. Unfortunately we had to separate there. I have to take flight to Munich.
Once arrived at Munich I thought I would experience some troubles since my visa is Italian visa although it's Schengen Visa. The immigration in Dubai questioned me about my purpose and why I landed in Munich instead of Italian area. But the immigration officer at Munich Airport is far more friendly compare to Dubai or Jakarta officers. Thank God I was allowed and my baggage was arrived on time.
After passport control and taking baggage I look for S-Bahn to take me to the Munich train station (Munich Hauptbahnhof). I found the sign and it took me to the subway below airport. When I arrived there I saw no machines or counters indicating ticket selling point. I asked a man and he told me to go upstairs, there I can find the ticket counter. The ticket cost me around 8 euros. I took S1 from the airport. One thing surprised me, there's no ticket checking whether before entering, during the journey nor after arrived at the destination. Although I caught a message board in S-Bahn declaring penalty for those who ride the transportation without valid ticket.
Arriving at Munich train station is more confusing. I took wrong direction and I went downstairs instead of upstairs. Luckily an old man showed me direction. When I went upstairs to the train platforms cold air struck me. I thought it was air conditioner but it was the air temperature at Munich itself. Very cold, for Indonesian :P Waiting train is not so long and then it took me to my final destination, Bolzano/Bozen.
4 hours by train from Munich to Bolzano. It was beautiful when entering alps mountain. it has green and white look. I got at Bolzano train station and look around for friends but can't find them so I decided to walk to the Rainerum, the name of a dormitory. Don Gregorio opened the door for me since I don't have key to enter it. Don Paolo took me to my room and I was amazed. This is two times bigger than my old room in Bandung. Nice place.
Bolzano is a small town. But a beautiful one. Yesterday Me and a friend went to the mountain for weinstrasse or walking in vineyard. Nice scenery. But I have to do my best in the next one year to pass all the course here.

3 comments:

ted said...

wah lucu judul nya .. kayak novel :D

north meets south itu apa ya ? apa yang ketemuan ?

eh mana cerita yang kesasar ? emang ngga ada ya ? ato hampir kesasar ?

cool!

Unknown said...

Bolzano itu sering disebut kota dimana eropa sebelh selatan bertemu dengan eropa sebelah utara karena disini ada dua etnik dgn dua bahasa berbeda yaitu italia dan jerman.
Kesasarnya bentar doank kok pas di stasiun munich.

Ciao

Si Melon said...

Welcome to Ilaty!

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