Drinking water

I have been stop posting for nearly a month! Was really enjoy BUSY studying and adapting myself with kind of new life over here. We were having jet lag for nearly two weeks. Germany is 6 hours behind Malaysia, haha, this is kinda interesting for me! It was like, YAY!!! I earned extra 6 hours in my first flight from Malaysia to Germany! 6am in Germany is 12pm in Malaysia, 12am in Germany is 6am second day in Malaysia! (Luckily it's "6" hours difference, not too difficult to be calculated, haha)

I thought I wouldn't have to experience jet lag (because I misinterpret how jet lag actually works). Way back ago I thought jet lag happens when someone couldn't or didn't get enough rest on the flight, and reached the destination in day time with really sleepy and tired body or vice versa, one rested well on the flight and reached destination in night time and couldn't sleep at night. If this is the case, then I wouldn't experience jet lag in Germany, cause everyone who knows me well, knows I always fall asleep easily in any kind of transportation in most condition haha. So flight at 12am Malaysia time and reached at 7am Germany time zone, total 13hours flight, as long as I rested well during the flight, then I will not feeling drowsy the second day. That was what I expected, and yeap, I was SUPER energetic the second day! I was so excited and so nervous from the second In-flight Announcement was announced! My heart beats got really really fast and my palm was so itchy as always when I'm getting nervous! hahahaha This is the dream land that I have been dreaming for so long, and I'm going to step on it, I'm finally on my way! I'm realizing part of my dream, it's not a whole part of it, but at least I fulfilled a little part of it =D And if I keep working on it, IT will one day becomes true!

Back to jet lag: NOOOO!!! Jet lag is not only whether one gets enough sleep in the flight >< But it's also whether biological clock get disturbed, and mine was disturbed! I get so sleepy and lethargic already when it's only 10pm, and wake up at 7am everyday automatically, it sounds so healthy but I need my 10pm to 12am time so badly :( I couldn't stand the drowsiness at all, I couldn't read through more than half page of my study and then I will already fall asleep on my study desk while still holding pen in hand. I was able to stay awake doing revision back in my time as a student in UM (Or it's actually because of aging..? Not jet lag?? uhm... ) Most of the time when I go on bed, I'm asleep within 3 minutes. I will immediately drifting off after lie down. I normally will only get sleepy at 1am or 2am the second day, not at 10pm! And at 7am sharp,YES! most of it SHARP! I wake up automatically and couldn't get back to sleep anymore, this is SOOO abnormal SOOO not me!!! So, I diagnose myself with that symptoms above: I was disturbed by jet laggggg LOL

Drinking water in Germany! Growing up in Malaysia, I was used to drink filtered tap water from certain acknowledged filtration companies, and the filtered water usually goes into a different tap. Water for washing and showering is different from drinking tap water.

But here, drinking tap water is also from kitchen's basin. All in one same tap..
A local lady from a fast food store said the tap water here not good to be drink but another local man told us the tap water is okay to be drink. We also noticed, a lot of people buying bottled mineral water from convenient store/supermarket, but I'm not sure whether they are locals or boarding student like us. 
12 x 500ml bottled water cost 1,99€, and a 1.5ml cost 0,19€. No matter a carbonated bottled mineral water or without carbonate. That is not too expensive.
However, I accidentally found this website telling why Germans don't drink tap water. 
One thing I learned from the article is NEVER offer a German a glass of tap water. They won't like it. Anyway, I don't know how true is this, if I'm wrong, please correct me. 

We decided to buy bottled water from convenient store for daily consume, and boiled tap water for cooking use. But unboiled tap water is safe to be drink too, even tap water from the toilet/bathroom. (but I have and will never give it a try) So if you want to save more, drink tap water will do. 

Of course there is various company selling mineral water, but we chose the cheapest one, haha, and this one has 3 flavour. Our grocery experience here in Aachen was mostly done in a supermarket called "Norma". I think I will have another post talking about doing grocery next time, haha

"Classic" and "Medium" is carbonated / sparkling mineral water, which "Medium" is less carbonated than "Classic", and  "Still" is the regular mineral water. I don't understand why mineral water want to be in carbonated, so I googled: some said because it's not that boring as normal mineral water, some said it helps them to burp, some said carbonated mineral water is not artificially carbonated, it's naturally sparkling. 

This is how a carbonated mineral water looks like. At my first taste of the sparkling water, it's somehow strange for me, we have soda in Malaysia but we don't consume it as mineral water, and here I'm drinking soda as if I'm consuming my daily water intake. But after I've finish drinking, I started to miss the bubbling water. oops

Do not throw away the bottles after you have finish, you paid extra for bottled water when purchasing, besides the 0,19€, you'll be charged for example a 0,25€ per bottle as "Pfand" (Deposit). You can get your $ back when you return it to where you buy from.

But not all bottles are charged for a deposit. So how to recognize whether one is charged for a deposit besides looking into the receipt? You may find it at the packaging tag too,

See the "Pfandflasche"? With this tag above, you can feed the machine called "Pfandautomat" with your bottles to reclaim your deposit. The bottles are either accepted or rejected depends on whether they are in the correct machine.

 Otherwise, a bottle without "Pfandflasche" will probably have the regular recycle symbol on it. This one is not charged for deposit.

We are lucky cause staying very near to Norma where we buy bottled water from, and this is the machine we are using to reclaim Pfand. The yellow piece of paper on the machine written "Ab sofort können Sie sämtliche PET-Einwegflaschen  und Getränkedosen hier zurückgeben" meaning you can return all the "Einwegflaschen" and beverage cans here. Please be noted, there are Einwegflaschen and Mehrwegflaschen.
Einwegflaschen: the bottle is used only once and then destroyed,  and
Mehrwegflaschen: bottles will be return to producer, get cleaned and reused.
Different kind of bottle will be charged differently for Pfand.

How it works? As easy as ABC, just feed the machine with your bottles, 

After you are done feeding, press the green button, 

Take the slip, proceed to cashier counter and show them your slip, you will get back your refund. The slip can be used to pay directly for your shopped goods too. Just show them your receipt before paying and the deposit value will be deducted from the amount you have to pay.

I have 5 Leergutbon total value of 4,25€, I bought 5,37€ goods. 5,37€ deduct 4,25€, so I will only need to pay 1,12€.

Okay, that's all!

Amsterdam to Aachen

Amsterdam Schiphol International Airport is an all-in-one airport. After we collect our luggage and pass the passport control desk, we tried to look for a train station. We have already bought a train ticket on the internet in Malaysia from Amsterdam to Aachen, it cost us approximately RM110. You may buy the train ticket on the spot at airport as well, they have the ticket machine there, but I am not sure whether these machines are manned. We bought the train ticket from "B SNCB Europe", alternative, you may try DB Bahn too. We printed out the ticket and have it with us all the way. Surprisingly, there weren't any ticket checking counter nor a ticket inspector before entering the train. But this doesn't mean that you can take free ride, because they do surprise ticket inspection. If you get caught for deliberately cheating, they'll fine you heavily. 

We are total in 3, one is S.Lady and another one is Lgirl, because she look just like a little girl though we share same birth year. L.girl has prepared a small note about our train routes and station information, and we depend a lot on that note. Not only to show people the station we wanna proceed next when we couldn't pronounce it correctly, also for us to remember which station we should get down. 

From Schiphol station --> Amsterdam Zuid --> Utrecht Centraal --> Heerlen --> our final station, Aachen Hauptbahnhof (Aachen Central Station), it took approximately 3 hours.

Scenery all the way from Amsterdam to Aachen was great, green wide countryside field with trees on horizon and blue sky above, white fluffy sheep, black and white dairy cattle, horses... WOW!!! 

hahaha, sorry if I sound like an idiot, but that's really super amazing for me. =D

Some might ask why don't we spend some time at Amsterdam before travel to Germany. We need to take a placement test in Germany before our class starts, activate our Blocked Account with Deutsche Bank, register ourselves in Aachen state and others, and with 30kg weighted luggage for each, that would be so difficult to move around. Thinking back the moment 3 of us getting our 6 months luggage up to train-floor level and next station moving it down to platform, it was like a tragedy!

Aachen Hbf, our final destination

First day in Aachen was a mess, after we got our apartment key, we spent our another half day cleaning it. Two bed rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. Our apartment is just next to street, on second floor, 7 mins walking distance to city, 3 mins walking distance to market and convenient store... Just great situated. But we having difficulties in recognize the road in our first day, we thought we are living in a rural area, no shopping center, no market, no nice restaurant... we found all these the second day.

Our first meal in Germany, it cost us 4,80€. I started to miss Malaysia food so much... Nasi lemak, sambal, roti planta, 幹撈板面, 雲吞面, char kuew tew, curry mee, taufu bok, slurrrp... even maggie mee!!!