Why go?

As last semester at nie was going by, it became more and more clear to me that i would not last another one (even with a month-long break in between it, and around half of the next one being spent at a school rather than at nie itself) without taking a good long overseas holiday during the aforementioned break. I figure that i'm the kind that needs regular holidays abroad to retreat, reflect and recharge. This being the last confirmed opportunity i'd have to do something like this since i dunno how things may be like next time, i felt i had to make sure that i'd make something out of this one. And me being me, i had to do it in some far away ang moh-inhabited place, and not something in the same continent. Granted that i've already had the opportunity this year to go on one of each of the two types of aforementioned trips for a reasonable amount of time, but i reasoned that hey i don't really spend on much in S'pore anyways (i'm set to match last year's record of one movie watched in a cinema in a calendar year), and i guess the money saved from that could go into a good far away trip.

Initially, i was thinking of doing the US again, maybe hit the magic 30 at least. But then again, i already went there earlier this year, and have been there pretty frequently in the past too. So i thought maybe that can wait for another time, especially when i can find others to go with (and maybe drive around for me :p). And since i was (and still am) getting so frustrated of the heat here, which meant that i'd to head somewhere in the northern hemisphere, the only other option would be somewhere in Europe. And since i'd be going by myself (cos while i didn't really ask around, i didn't get any "i want to take a good, reasonably long holiday in some far away ang moh country and i'm looking for others who want to do the same" vibes from anyone), i figured it would have to be in a place that i would be able to survive reasonably well enough. In other words, i'd have to go to a place where i can manage with at least one of the languages commonly spoken there. That meant English and (God willing,) French [Mandarin would be out unless i would be doing a tour of Europe's Chinatowns, sampling the Singapore Fried Noodles of the Chinese restaurants in each place...]. So after a heck of a lot of surfing of sites like expedia, momondo, and eurail, i managed to find a really good ticket on non-crash-prone carriers (SIN-AMS, CDG-SIN) and a suitable rail pass for Benelux and France. For the latter, since it was the last year i could take advantage of the youth pass (until 26 years old) and train travel allowed me to be more flexible in my travel plans (since i'm so last min), as well as less polluting, while affording the convenience of traveling to/from train stations which are often near/in the city center as opposed to airports at the fringes, i thought that it was a no brainer to get a rail pass compared to choosing to fly from city to city.

Hmm so that's a really long preamble to the actual trip itself, long-winded as i am... The rest will come soon...