I shall put aside my sorry attempt to re-chronicle our Germany trip for a while and talk about another aspect of our (soon to be) married life.

A Wedding is a wonderful occasion.

It is a time when you’ll have random strangers slithering up to you explaining how you could make the most of this once in a lifetime experience, and create some truly unforgettable memories by going through the one simple step of paying them an obscene amount of money.

Anyway, we figured that we would probably need a gown for the wedding (I think it’s obvious that here, by “We”, of course, I meant “She”), so we’ll definitely have to pick a bridal boutique out of the millions on the market.

Through our combined genius-ness, we decided that a bridal fair would be a good place to start looking for potential boutiques. Somehow, through the mist of wedding bliss, we failed to come to the simple realization that a couple with an engagement ring around the ladies’ finger walking through a row of bridal kiosks is like dangling a piece of meat in front of a pack of starving hyenas.

In our defence, we had a good reason for thinking that… We had boogers the size of brains…

We walked from stall to stall, TRYING to look at the portfolios of the studios on show.

“Trying” because at every kiosk, a salesperson will try to lure us for a “quick chit chat” at their stall via the very subtle sales technique of thrusting a brochure in our faces.

If we showed any bit of interest at all, by “any bit of interest”, I mean “not running away at our fastest possible speeds and screaming our heads off”, the sales people will continue thrusting the brochures into our hands and inevitable, make the following points:

1. There is no point comparing the various boutiques as they are already the ones with the best prices and photographers.

2. The other boutiques are run by scums who would not know the blushing bride from a spitting llama.

Being young and naive, we followed one of these sales persons into their kiosks to spend “a few minutes” to look at their collection and listen to their pitch. It was a surreal experience. Because one moment we were sitting down at the kiosk, and the next thing we know, it was it was 2 hours later and we were mentally and physically drained. It is almost like entering a time machine.

We failed miserably the first time round.

But like Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky (or his career), we did not give up that easily.

Armed with this experience, we were better prepared to brave the bridal fair a second time. “The Ultimate Ninja Warrior” has nothing on us. We bravely resisted repeated attempts of brochure thrusts and “just five minutes of your time”s. I was especially proud of the way I smile and resolutely say “No, I know what I am looking for” to almost all the vendors.

But you really have to give it to some of these vendors.  They can tell from my stoic face that they were facing some sales resistance, and in the blink of an eye, they redid all their calculations and came up with a brilliant short term strategy… they turned around to the Wife-to-be, and thrusted brochures into her face saying “just five minutes of your time”. We walked by some of these stalls at least 6 times that day and every time they will thrust their brochures into our face saying “just five minutes of your time”. These people had a sales strategy and they are sticking to it!

In all honesty, a bridal fair is really not SUCH a bad place to shop for the essential bridal package. There is a lot of variety and some stalls really do give significant discounts off the their regular packages.

And I suppose the experience would not be as bad if you enjoy the combination of the two fine skills which makes up the pillars of our society… shopping and lying…. Long story short, I secured a package from one of the boutiques using so much false proclamations that I fear the karmic impact on my next 9 lives.

We just went down to the studio for a first gown tryout for the Wife to Be and were quite impressed with their gown collection.

This is also when I found out about the one of the major flaws of the Wife to Be…

A prelude of things to come...

She CANNOT take a decent photo to save her life. I mean… seriously….

Besides not being able to just “smile”, she has to go around striking nonsensical poses in EVERY single photo… kinda reminds me of Calvin…

The worst part about taking a photo for her? I don’t think she is doing it intentionally!

I’ll be like:

“Ok. Taking a photo. Smile… 1, 2….3!”

And she’ll ALWAYS move at “3″.

Proof of this below (check out the simultaneous face and hand movement…)

And if there’s any more doubt… More Calvin comparison

The Wife to Be claimed she grew up from a healthy diet of “Calvin and Hobbes”… (True story: one of her many party tricks is that she is able to easily narrate “what comes next” by flipping through a random “Calvin and Hobbes collection. Impressive feat for a girl who will forget to bring her handphone to work)

Anyway, my point of it all.

Good luck to our wedding photographer. I hope it was worth the money. And I am dying to see how our wedding photos will turn out.

Holidayers can be generally classified into 2 categories.

1) The “Cram – as – many – things -  as – you – can – see – and – do – because – we – are – only – here – once”  kind

and

2) Our kind… or at least, my kind

I believe that holidays should be done at as slow a pace as possible. I am perfectly comfortable with taking a day just lazing in, chilling at a cafe before my afternoon nap then going to a pub for a nice cold one before retiring for an early night during my holidays abroad.

Now that the background for that is over, I could say that nothing, absolutely NOTHING could’ve prepared me for our first day in Germany.

We arrived in Munich at 8 in the morning and decided to check into our hostel. My idea was to take the day to take a leisurely stroll through the city to get the hang of things. And more precisely, to practice our “Will you come with me”.

A friend of ours had told us of this tour group called “Sandeman’s New Europe Tours” which, apparently brings tourists around various European cities on an educational, fun, and more importantly to sophisticated tourists like us… FREE tour.

As luck would have it, our hostel (4you Hostel and Hotel) is an associate of Sandeman’s tour and there is a daily pickup for the tour at our hostel.

Must be serendipity, right? Unilaterally, the Fiance and I decided that we should go for the tour which departs within…10 minutes of our arrival at the hotel. Who cares about trivial matters such as Jet Lag, Lack of Sleep and battling Monster Airports that very morning, right?

Pickup Guy proceeded to bring us through the mazy streets of Munich, towards the starting point of the tour, at a breakneck pace (at least, that’s how it seemed to sleep deprived Me).

My thoughts were “Crap… I am gonna die of exhaustion midway through this tour”

Afterwards, I found out from the Fiance that her thoughts were “Crap… We are gonna get hopelessly lost getting back to the hostel.”

Anyway, we reached the Rathaus Glockenspiel at Marienplatz.

And that’s when we met Her.

Claire.

The tour de force that swept us through Munich over the next 3 hours of so.

Introductions were barely over before she started on her play by play commentary for the story enacted by “Europe’s second most overrated attraction” (her words, not mine).

The Fiance and I had been known to tire people out with our banter, back in the day. But seriously, we are like lethargic slugs next to Claire.

She brought us on a really fun and, dare I say it, educational tour of Munich. She was able to mix the telling of the myths and fables of  ancient Bavaria with the story of Munich, under Hitler and the Third Reich.

We followed her up the main streets of Munich and through some quarters which we, as tourists, would never have gone. We listened as she told us about the tales of joy and sadness behind the architectures that we strolled past.

We were totally enthralled.

We listened, as she told us of the motifs that could be found throughout Munich, such as the Bavarian monk who is NOT holding a beer, and NOT pointing in the direction of the nearest beer hall.

She showed us the church that was built by the Devil and told us the story of the builder who tricked him into doing so. Of how the devil, furious at being tricked, left his footprint in the church that can be seen to this day.

She told us tales of Munich during World War II. Of cataclysmic  events such as Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch and of Kristalnach. Of horrific accounts of Jewish lives under the Third Reich.

And my favorites: Stories of resistance of the not so common ordinary Germans who stood against Hitler in their own ways. Of Georg Elser and his almost successful attempt on Hitler’s life, of the White Rose Resistance, and of Shirkers’ Alley.

Shirkers’ Alley, being the side street ordinary Germans, on pain of torture and even death, took to avoid heil-ing Hitler’s monument to his “matyrs” from the Beer Hall Putsch. The alley is now cobbled with bronze stones.

More importantly, Claire showed us the joys of Bavarian Beer and taught me a new word I can show off with :Vergangenheitsbewaltigung

Vergangenheitsbewaltigung: A word with no english equivalent. Meaning… “Struggle to come to terms with the past”.

A word that could only be invented by the Germans.

We are each in our own little worlds, me curled up in bed completely immersed in my book, him at the computer playing one of his silly game thingies.

Vaguely, through my (apparently not so complete) concentration on my book, I hear him mutter: “Idiotface.” He must have lost a round.

Then some rustling and fussing around. He’s trying to find something, I know, but I can’t be bothered to look up to see what’s going on, or to offer my help, because I have to find out what happens to Liesel next. Minutes later, too suddenly, my page lights up and the words become clearer. I have to blink a few times in the abrupt brightness, but I don’t have to strain so hard to see anymore.

He’d been looking for the adaptor to plug in the night lamp for the Idiotface who was obliviously reading in the dark, who couldn’t be arsed to get up and turn on the light herself.

“You’re gonna spoil your eyes. Idiotface.” he nags, adding a severe eye-roll, before returning to his stupid precious game.

It’s at moments like these that I can so clearly picture us together as little bent old people.

One of the first attractions the Fiance and I saw were… I kid you not, the yellow leaves on the trees.

The Fiance and I have spent our entire lives in a tropical climate, so understandably, the changing of seasons is a concept that is almost foreign to us. We were actually anticipating snow, given the season, but what greeted us as we took the S-Bahn to the center of Munich were the yellowing trees of autumn.

As can be seen from these photos, much spasticity and cam whoring ensues over the rest of our trip whenever and wherever we are able to spot some yellowery or redery.

Oops…  seemed I’ve been a little tardy with the travel log updates.

Anyway, taking a little technical break from the travel log, because we have finally gotten off our asses and started the various processes to actually Get Married.

Long story short, we were essentially kicked off our butts by the impending purchase of our new House. But that’s a story for another day.

One of the first things we did (off our asses) was to get the wedding bands. We’ve did an initial recon a few months back at one of the bigger chain jewelers (which we shall refer to anonymously, as GitiCems) (not to be mistaken for CitiGems, of course) (Because that would be akin to libel for what I am about to say) (or write)(actually Type would be a more accurate word)(I don’t really like talking to myself)(typing)(whatever…).

While we were suitably impressed by the attitude and knowledge of the salesperson, we could not bring ourselves to believe that “All wedding bands look similar”, and that at the end of the day, we are shopping for the diamond(s) rather than the setting of the ring. We wanted something more uniquely “ours”.

One of the few things the salesperson managed to scare into us is that due to the level of difficulty it takes to manufacture and customize a (mold pressed) ring, we’ll need to get our rings well in advance of the wedding. A good estimate for the time frame required to get a ring would be “the day that we were born”. Haha. I kid, new born babies do not have the eyesight nor the taste to get good wedding bands. We should have psychic ed message ahead so that our parents could get it for us.

In the end, through the introduction from a friend, we found a jeweler offering custom made rings for a relatively cheap price. The jeweler is “by appointments only”. We made an appointment for a 2pm slot on a Saturday.

Surprisingly, we were at the jewelers 10 minutes earlier than our appointment time. Definitely a new record for us. Getting hitched must really be doing wonders to our combined concepts of time.

Anywho, the jeweler showed us tonnes of her designs and we were asked to filter out the ones that we “sortof” like. From this, we could shortlist them further till we found the Ones. Either that or we could create an all new design based on the elements of the rings that we like.

At the end of this, we were sure of a few criteria for the rings that we would eventually choose:

1. It must have black gold in it

2. The ring must have some intertwining motif

3. It must be (relatively) cheap

4. NO DIAMONDS on my ring (I can’t get over the whole “diamonds are a girl’s best friend” thing).I don’t want to feel like Nichole Kidman on my wedding day.

5. It must be friggin AWESOME.

Using these criteria, we managed to shortlist and actually place the deposit for 2 rings.

However, wrecked with self doubt, we actually went home to google for ring designs. I know, I know, we should have done that BEFORE going to the jeweler, but you know, spilt milk and all…

Anyway, we came up with the following design and actually made a call to the jeweler to see how much it would cost to make this pair of rings.

The knot based design has a special significance to ME especially, and we really like the idea that the knot looks like an infinity sign.

However, it turns out the price is so exorbitant that we dropped the idea straight.Putting this design out here for anyone who might want to use it.

Long story short (again), we stuck to the original 2 rings that we chose (which are still friggin awesome in themselves).

I’m pretty sure there’s a moral in the story above, but I can’t figure it out just yet.

So we got on to our plane safely.

We had a flight to Frankfurt and from there a transit to Munich. We had an hour between transit. We knew that it was going to be a bit tight making our next flight to Munich, so you can imagine our relief when we found out we arrived at Frankfurt early. (by 3 minutes, according to the pilots) (and I sat there thinking, “Wow, talk about German precision, they have this thing down to a minute) (of course, they did not include the time needed to taxi to our gate, which by my rough estimation was around 10000km away) (or 200 pounds).

For all the *sic* planning that we’ve put in, we forgot to factor in a very important factor – the airport planners and security team at Frankfurt Airport have brains the size of peanuts.

Haha. I kid, of course. Anyone with brains the size of peanuts would not have the foresight to build their airport on what a layperson such as I would refer to as a blackhole. It was a LONG walk to the gate from which we are supposed to board our connecting flight. The walk was so long I think we passed though 5 different time zones and 2 hemisphere to get to our connecting gate. I believe nomadic tribes formed in the airport, looking for someone to lead them out. So, no, anyone with peanuts for brains would not have been able to come up with planning like this. Planning like this require boogers for brains.

Which brings us to another sore spot. The security. Frankfurt is the only airport I know that conducts security checks for travelers in transit. It’s as if  travelers like us could pick up something on our nomadic track through the airport that would threaten the security of the aircraft. The options are limited, but using McGyver like technical know-how, I would say the airport is fraught with security threats that can be used to threaten the pilots to hijack a plane. Maybe a bar of soap from the airport toilet, or the 10 year old hot dog that is revolving in the oven of the airport cafeteria.

One thing to note. Frankfurt is the air hub of Germany. Nearly all international flights pass through Frankfurt before being rerouted to other places in Germany. You can only begin to imagine the lines at the security gates. It circled around 3 of the 5 time zones we walked past earlier. And this was at 5AM in the morning.

So there we were standing in our own pee (cause we were too afraid we would miss our flight for something so frivolous as a toilet break), as we watched the airport security go through detailed security searches on the people in front of us. We felt really safe due to the vigilance of the security staff at the airport who conducted detailed pat downs of high security threats such as the 70 year old lady in front of us and, I swear this is true… a pilot! What was he gonna do? Hijack the plane he is piloting??? The icing on top of the cake was when I saw the team trying to make a 3 year old child walk through the metal detector without the parents, seeing as how 3 year old kids are the most cooperative, and yet most terrifying terrorists this side of Barney.

No thanks to the security, we managed to make it onto our flight… but only by the skin of our teeth.

On a not altogether unrelated note, I shall now relate our first encounter with a Native.

We arrived in Munich, totally prepared to kick ass with our newly found understanding of Germain through a 1 hour audio course. (We can speak a really mean “Will you come with me”) (Insert your own childish joke here). Armed with this useful knowledge and references from a 10 minute scan of Lonely Planet just before arrival saw us standing dumbstruck in front of the train ticketing machine.

We had no idea how to purchase a ticket from the airport to the city, or which of the million and one tickets we should be buying. After a serious pow-wow, we decided that the last thing we should do is panic and go to any random German stranger to ask “Will you come with me?”

Our looks of distress must have been obvious, because we were soon approached by this little old lady at the ticketing machine. Using a variety of hand signals and language spoken as it is broken (on the part of the old lady, we could only gawk, cause we don’t have the skills to speak broken German), we (by we, I meant the Fiance) came to understand that she arrived at the airport with her sister in the morning and had 2 days from her 4 day pass still valid. She offered to sell us her ticket for half the price as she no longer required it to go back to her place.

Suspicion is an essential survival trait.

Being the Alpha Male in the relationship, and based on the essential information I can gather from anything she said containing the words “Will”, “You”, “Come”, “With” and “Me”, I gave my best look of wariness and alertness and said “Sure!”, all the while thinking… “We are so gonna get ripped off on our first encounter in Germany!”

This feeling was compounded by her offering to buy us some true Bavarian breakfast in order to break the 50 Euros that we have.

We managed to use the rail pass for the remaining 2 days, but that could be partly due to the fact that the German rail system uses a system of trust (they really should not do any business where we come from) and we were not checked for our rail passes for those 2 days.

To this day, I’m still wondering if we (by we, I meant I) were overly suspicious of a good Samaritan.

We blatantly refuse to believe that there are only 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute.

We prefer to think that time is bendable to our will.

At least that must be what my parents think.

On my part, I can only imagine how stressful it must’ve been for them to send us off to the airport for the trip.

First, some facts.

Our plane was due to take off at 12 Midnight, which means that checking in STARTS at 10PM.

So, to us, this means that we should be there earliest by 10PM, and have up till 1130PM before check in stops. This would allow us to leave the house comfortably at 1030PM to catch a 20 minute cab ride to the Airport, with 40 minutes of “buffer” time for contingencies such as Emergency Toilet Breaks along the way.

To my parents, it means that we have to be there LATEST by 10PM,for checking in. On top of that, we should probably include some “buffer time” for emergencies such as Strikes by the Cab Company, the entire Singapore Taxi Fleet being annihilated by a Meteor Strike, Traffic Blocked by Runaway Cows and the hot favorite “Last Minutes Runs back home for Forgotten Passports” (I have been assured that the Home => Airport => Home => Airport “Passport Dance” is an age old and time honored Family Custom ). This means that we should be packed and all prepared to leave for the Airport by no later than… 6 in the morning. Haha. I kid, of course. They would prefer it if we were at the Airport at 6 in the morning.

I think you can only imagine the states my parents must have been reduced to when we touched down from our Malaysian flight at 3PM that day with nary a bag packed for the trip to Germany. They must have been convinced that the plane is going to leave without us at 7PM, when we strolled home with packed dinner for everyone. By the time we leave the house at 10PM (hassled out by ominous and haunting sounds of Hostile Key Jingling), I think they had to valiantly put on the “It’s your money you are wasting if you cannot catch the plane” front.

But deep down, we know that they have been reduced to little more than little pools of worry.

It’s sweet.

Times like this, I wonder if I could ever care and worry so much about Somebody elses’ trivialities, especially when said Somebody is a young punk who is half my age. It’s the sort of thing that fills you with the bitter sweet feeling when you’re going for a long trip. On one hand, you’re looking forward to the adventure, and on the other, there is this little uncomfortable feeling inside when you remember that there is someone back home actually worrying if you’ve eaten or brush your teeth.

It must have been a big relief for the Parents when they realized we were one of the first to arrive at the Airport for checking in.

There was a warm and fuzzy feeling inside when we started hugging each other goodbyes – and then they wanted to open up our locked backpack to go through the list of things that we would have Forgotten to Bring.

One of the side effects of getting married is that we need to live together.

It might not seem like much but I have access to very reliable empirical research that living together tears apart more marriages than, I swear this is true, asteroids crashing into Earth – and with more devastating consequences.

It seems fallacious to dive headlong into a marriage without first finding out what it is like to live with each other.

So, we decided to isolate ourselves from our friends and family.

We ran away for 2 weeks to a place where nobody knows us;
where it is so isolated that we could not understand anything the natives are saying;
where we would have to face each other 24 hours a day and wake up every morning sharing (horrors) the same tube of toothpaste;

We needed to spend quality time discussing important marriage questions such as the merits and demerits of a tube wedding gown. Verdict: Not a very good idea, especially *snort* if the bride slims down tremendously. Problems might arise when she lifts both hands to throw the bouquet.

Sidenote: Why do you need to use both hands to throw a bouquet anyway??? It’s not exactly a bouquet of plowers, is it?

We also needed space to find ourselves as a couple, defining boundaries when it comes to staying together. An advice to all other professional guys out there: Leaving the television and lights on during unnecessary situations such as “when you leave the room”, “when you fall asleep at night” or “when you need to find your glasses in the middle of the night” could potentially bankrupt the hotel as your cut throat hotel fees are not able to cover the electricity bills at the end of the month. Apparently, if all travelers are as wasteful on the electrical usage as we are, we could even bankrupt a small country like say… Germany.

On this note, apparently, we COULD understand a lot of what the natives were saying.

When I first heard that it was a Singaporean thing to propose by way of “let’s get a HDB flat”, I didn’t believe it. A few years later, having heard numerous accounts from friends who’ve experienced this, I’m proud to say I’m one of the lucky ones. I actually got a proper proposal (applause for him please) guess I did a good job drilling into him how unacceptable this is.

So here we are, at this next big step. We have spent our last few weekends invading other people’s houses, which has been fun, being the voyeur that I am. Now when it comes to looking for your first real home, you’re tireless in your search for perfection. Of course you have a dream home in mind. This is where you will start your new chapter. This is where you will create the best memories of your life. This is where your children will grow up. This is where you will learn that no matter how much you spend on renovation and shiny furniture, it will still end up looking like a dump in a matter of weeks (at least anywhere I stay seems to do this).

We’ve become rather experienced at home-hunting by now. It’s just that I’ve noticed we’ve been looking for very different things. The more intellectually superior one between us (subtle hint: not me) checks out the more sensible things, such as the location, and the flooring, and whether the roof leaks. The other one, who is generally not known for being sensible, keeps herself busy fawning over pretty bedsheets, playing with other people’s children, worrying that the window grills are dusty and trying to detect if the place is haunted.

It took quite a bit of patient explaining before he got through to me the facts that:

Bedsheets and tablecloths are irrelevant. Owners will take these away with them when they move out.

It is not mandatory that we find a unit with nice wallpaper. We can paint over ugly walls (and make them our own version of ugly)

It is a good idea to look out for unchangeable things, such as location, floor level, windows facing other people’s apartments and flooring (which apparently costs a bomb to re-do) Anything else can be renovated.

Good thing he has my back. I couldn’t possibly do this alone.

And he apologized.

This is the guy who has spent hours, a few days a week, waiting patiently for me without complaint when I’m stuck late at work. This is the guy who smilingly accompanies me when I hang out with my friends, even though we talk about girly stuff which I’m sure he could do without hearing. This is the guy who voluntarily sat through 4 hours of torturous, mind-numbing festivities, just to catch 2 minutes of a performance that involved me. This is the guy who indulges my shopping whims, when my “just 5 seconds” turns into entire hours of browsing, when I try on half the shoes in the store.

All this, and I bend his ear off about 2 measly hours. Top me at taking people for granted, anyone?