I don't want my exchange experiences to be reduced to vague memories and soon turn to dust and be swept away, lost and forgotten. So, I shall jot down the random things that shape/are representative of my experience here as they come to my mind -

- Living in a little town, or more like a village on a mountain (Hallgarten) of a little town (Oestrich-winkel).

- Walking the 2km stretch of road leading to Hallgarten MORE THAN ONCE in pitch darkness because some (perhaps governmental) mistake left this road stripped bare of street lamps. Without a torch, we had to reply on the faint moonlight and the glow of the white snow to guide us along the road to home.

- Fumbling with our house keys and the darn door for 15-30mins MORE THAN ONCE as our fingers (and other parts too) stiffened in the cold, because we didn't know we had to turn the key RIGHT and not left, pull, then push to open the door.

- Living on apples, kiwis, nutella, bread, chocolate, nuts, cheese and cherry tomatoes, especially when travelling (there's no kitchen to cook).

- Having all 3 meals at the nearby supermarket, preferably Aldi (it's the cheapest!)

- Collecting plastic bags whenever available in supermarkets is routine.

- Visiting the supermarkets more often than we go to school.

- Patronizing all 3 supermarkets in our vicinity (the school's vicinity to be precise - we've to take a bus out of Hallgarten, the little town within the little town) each time to buy grocceries at their most economic price.

- Usually visiting the 3 supermarkets in order of their economy in pricing - first Aldi, then Netto, followed by Rewe, the most well-stocked but also the priciest of the three.

- Hand washing our clothes because we've a calculative landlord who charges us 3euros per wash when other students have landlords who charge nothing for the use of the washing machine.

- Bringing larger and thicker items (eg. bedsheets, thick clothing) to our friends' house to wash using, thankfully, the washing machine - a humble but wonderful invention.

- Scheduling our days' activities around the bus timetable

- Getting paranoid when the bus is late (especially when it is snowing), because punctuality is not only a virtue but also the norm in Germany. A late bus means it was stuck in the snow some where and this opens up the terrible possibility of us having to return home (~2km, 50min up slope).

- Protein-less for a week - my first week in Germany.

- Skype-home and house-cleaning Sundays

- Watching cooking videos for tips and recipes

- Converting my room into a mini studio with a towel as a makeshift yoga mat for my exercise indoors, with BBC news playing in the background.

- Wishing I had a bolster.

- Pedalling a bike that can't back pedal. The pedals don't move when wheeling the bike. We got our bike refunded because it was impossible to cycle up slope to Hallgarten. Walking is a breeze in comparison.

- Enjoying chopping vegetables (don't ask me why) and cooking. I find chopping vegetables kind of therapeutic though I do cut myself occasionally.

- Becoming increasingly skilled at peeling kiwis through practice (I peel at least one kiwi per day on average).

Speaking of one's ugly side, these are what constitute my ugly side that I've come up with: too serious and uptight at times, insolent at times, miserly and picky at times, too proud to admit my mistakes or publicly acknowledge my ignorance at times and also petty at times. (I certainly hope that this list has been exhausted!) Note that "at times" accompanies each ugly trait of mine. Just to prove the point that people exhibit different traits at different times. Sometimes I find it pathetic and aversive how people tend to generalize and stereotype others, yet I'm guilty of doing that too at times. But I have learnt that this is a mechanism that we as humans are hard-wired to carry out. It's a way to simplify things; make information easier to process. So the key to preventing stereotyping really is to manage it.