the sound of music

Sorry for the long delay. It's hard to do things when you're in Clinical Phase. Anyway, it's time for me to talk about our 2nd destination city - Salzburg, Austria.

You know that when you're on a trip, you try your best to reduce your expenditure to save money. Well, Fikri Hakim was surprised at my determination in performing this endeavour. Thankfully, I can change from a posh socialite wannabe to a traveler on survival mode. Yeap, I would dehydrate and starve myself but not to an extreme level of course (I know the signs of dehydration). It's a way for me to teach myself to be tougher I guess, haha.

Salzburg, Austria

20-22 Feb 2012

For this trip, I acclaimed Salzburg as my favourite place. I actually said to Fikri that I'd be happy to go back home after visiting this place without going to the 3rd country.

So, why do I like this country the most out of the 3? Probably because of the majestic natural beauty blessed by The Almighty~

Day 3 - Mon, 20 Feb 2012

Okay, about the hotels. You have 2 choices; 

A. Stay at a hotel far from the city centre and pay for the bus rides

B. Stay at a hotel at the city and you don't really need bus rides unless you're leaving for the airport or train

We went for A. Maybe because it's cheaper? Well, Fikri Hakim was the one who bought it. You might want to consider the pros and cons of choosing your accommodation when you go to Salzburg.

Train ticket Prague-Salzburg

Oh right, from Prague to Salzburg, the cost of the train tickets is € 52.00. Not a good idea. So, buy earlier online rather than buying them on the spot.

Now for the bus rides in Salzburg, a single ticket costs € 2.10 whereas a one day ticket costs € 4.20. But if you're staying in the hotels in the city centre, you don't really need bus rides unless you're having problems walking.

As usual, it's only validated when you stamp it on the machine just like in Prague. We bought this one since our hotel is far from the city.

 

 I think this shirt is witty

 It may be ugly but the buses in Salzburg are environmental. So, I like it!

 My favourite restaurant since it's purely seafood, haha.

Fish baguette at € 2.99. This is basically my lunch and dinner for a few times.

This is the best hot chocolate I've tasted out of all the places I've been to in my Halfway Breakaway.

Day 4 - Tue, 21 Feb 2012

When you talked about Salzburg to other people, what would usually popped into their heads?


It's usually the movie; The Sound of Music. Yeap, we went on The Sound of Music tour. Even if you've never heard of the movie, you can always go on this trip to look at the stunning views of this wonderful place in Austria. Me, Fikri Hakim along with travelers from the USA got into this minibus and we went to various locations which looked so cool and breathtaking. Lawa giler!! And it's not even spring yet.

 This is the first photo of us together, haha

 This is the tour guide

 This is currently my cover photo on FB

 Apple strudel!

 If you want to get a good view of the city from above, find this lift to the Modern Museum

The price for one way is € 2.00

 We only bought one way since we want to go down the hill afterwards. This is the interior of the building with the secret lift.

 Find this place on top and stand directly in front of it with the exact perspective shown in the picture

Turn around and this is the view that you're looking for, subhanallah

 And this is the route that we took to go down the hill

 Another place that you could go and see the city from a good view is probably to go to Hotel Stein and go to the rooftop at night. We went in daylight and it was okay. I prefer the one from the hill.

 You can then exchange your The Sound of Music Tour ticket to get a ticket to enter Panorama Museum

Panorama Museum, Salzburg

This is the company that arranged our tour, Salzburg Panorama Tours. They actually have more tours like Salt-Mine Tour and Eagle's Nest (some of these tours are only available during summer).

 Paella! A Spanish delicacy in an Austrian city.

 Mozart's birthplace is just next to Nordsee. I bet he likes fish as a child.

And I finally get to taste Jumbo shrimps. It's quite costly and this is the one from Nordsee.

If you love sending postcards to people in Malaysia, the price is € 1.70 (the most expensive of the 3 countries). Lastly, you might want to have a look at Salzburg Card. You can get a free round-trip ticket on the cable car with the card but only get it if you want to go to a lot of places.

So, that's Salzburg for you! Salzburg is probably one of the places that I'd like to go again. I just realized that no matter where I go, it's usually the natural beauty that catches my eye and Salzburg is full of it. 

"And how many signs in the heavens and the earth do they pass by? Yet they turn (their faces) away from them!"

(Yusuf, 12:105)

That shows how impressive is the grandeur of Allah compared to men's creations...

forget you

Firstly, I just want to say thank you to everyone who have given me support since these past few days. It means a lot really. To know that I have wonderful people around who have faith in me when I don't even believe in myself. Of course, being betrayed is hurtful but I'm grateful cause at least, I have something to remember about my dark 3rd Year in the future. I've always wanted my life to be dramatic and alhamdulillah, Allah gave me that. It's just that I hope it won't be too much drama in the future. Enough is enough, haha.

 I even got a mystery delivery (^^,)

Apart from that, Surgery is exciting as ever. I can't deny that it's tiring. I found myself sitting at the reception opening up the doors to the patients coming into the ward at times. Just because I was supposed to talk to new patients being admitted into the hospital. Waiting is agonizing. But there was one day where I get to take lots of blood from patients and also interview a lot of them. I was a rock star on that day. Alhamdulillah, my week in the second most hectic ward has ended (Surgical Admissions Unit, this one is after A&E). I even got a good comment from a patient through my Surgical Teaching Fellow saying that I examined her well. Rasa macam nak nangis bila dapat tau. Itula, it somehow indicates that I may be good in terms of skills but in terms of knowledge? *coughs* 

Well anyway, I get to see the people I care last week, ihik2. That made me happy. I even got to execute the 2nd version of The Amazing Race, muahahaha. This time the idea comes not only from me but from Fadhir, Azhar and Fikri which made it even more challenging and unpredictable. Apart from that, a simple question like "are you okay?" is enough to make me feel better cause I know that the person is there for me. Okay, just realized that my posts can be too emotional -_-". Betulla cakap sorang ni waktu kat suatu tempat best minggu  lepas, "...banyak tweets yang aku dapat. Adlan dengan emonye, kau dgn qawiynye." LOL! Agakla, kepada followers di Twitter, you are more than welcome to stop following me, huhu.

Right, so..why am I writing this post? It's because it's time for me to move on. Actually, I think I moved on many days ago. Like even before Spring Camp UK 2012 (SCUK). But I have to make it official, kah3. See these pictures? I actually kept them because they contain the handwriting of someone inspirational. I even have her signature which I wanted to keep as a souvenir originally. Now, I want to burn them. Seriously. 

Haha, kidding. I'm an environmentalist. So, I'd recycle them all. Dah lama dah simpan dalam bilik. I think it's time to let go. Just forget everything. 

You know when people usually said to us to just forget and move on. Well, it's not as easy as one might think. It takes a lot of determination for you to move on especially after you had a major setback. In my case, the ironic ending of my Honours Year Project. Yelah, lebih-lebih lagi kalau you're a guy with an unexplainable good memory on sentimental events. Lagila susah nak lupakan. But you just have to try and even if you can't, you just move along cause you know that you've had something bad in the past and that can only make you stronger in the future. That's just my personal insight on my dramatic ending.

My Honours Year Project was a real life manifestation of a film noir - a boy trying to realize his sky-high dreams through a homebase he didn't even like with the help of a person who brought him down in the end. Along the way, he experienced false hopes in addition to the stress from the dullness and failures he underwent whilst completing the project. It's drama, betrayal and an ironic ending all in one. And I'm thankful to Allah for giving me a dark chapter in my life cause this made me stronger than before...

fix you

Ok, this post is meant to clarify my tweets since the past few days.

If you looked at this post, you'd know that I was ready to get whatever result for my Honours Year Project...well, I was. Of course, in my mind, the mark that I imagined would be somewhere within the average range. But when I looked into the portal, I was surprised to see that it was so low. Yeah, I was devastated at that time. I've already decided to focus on my BMBS (the 2nd and the main degree) but that low mark made me feel so hopeless. Using the previous year's mark distribution as a guidance, that means, I'm in the bottom 10% of the batch. This is the first time I'm in the bottom 10%. If I'm in a reality show, I'm inches away from elimination.

So yeah, I tweeted some of my expressions hoping to attract my friends' attention. Yeap, when I tweet, I'm actually letting my friends know that I need some morale boosting. Bukan untuk menarik perhatian umum dan menjadi popular! 

On the same day, Dr Har and Dr Hafidzah came to Nottingham to deliver some motivational talks. What are the odds? The 2nd revelation of my exam results happened on the same day as this event -_-" Dah la aku kena jadi emcee.

It was motivational really when Dr Har said that "orang beriman kalau mendapat kesukaran, dia tahu Allah sedang menguji dia". I did feel much better after the talk. Allah sent me Dr Har on the same night I found out about my result.

Tau tak...bila saya dapat homebase Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, saya bagitau kat kawan-kawan (ie Izzul Faiz) yang the only aims for me were to get my project published and to get 1st class. I said to him that, "Yelah, dah tak suka. Fokus untuk dapat result elok je la and publish". Cause I know I wouldn't enjoy doing my project. This conversation took place during summer last year.

My aims were:

- to get published

- to get 1st class

Well, it's obvious I didn't get it published. The project was a microbiological fiasco. And 1st class? *coughs* waaaaayyyyy far from that mark.

Sedih betul cerita ni. Macam drama Melayu di mana watak utama dia kena badi and then semua orang keliling dia jadi lumpuh, kena langgar kereta, syarikat muflis, mak tiri buli etc.

Tu lah dia, kegagalan Adlan Wafi. Oh, saya tak fail ye. Lagipun, mana boleh fail. Kalau fail apa jadi? Orang tu kena repeat projek untuk 8 bulan lagi? Kesian orang tu.

So anyway, I felt better on Friday...until I opened up the feedback envelope which I received from Fadh who collected in on my behalf since my hospital is like so far away.

I looked at my disseration mark...not bad. I was happy to see the comment from Dr Shanika Crusz. She's so supportive and understanding. My viva mark was predictable. I didn't really performed. And my supervisor's mark?

TOTAL SHOCKER!

She decided to give me the lowest mark I have ever obtained in the whole 3 years of my medical course. I felt like my heart was stabbed with a pipette. I know she was being professional but I didn't really think that my performance was really that bad. Upon looking at the feedback, there were only 2 sentences written negatively about me. I was so baffled! I kept looking at the feedback every now and then to check if there was an error...she might have chosen the mark by mistake, it might have been incorrectly entered into the system, whatever the possible mistakes could be. I was in ultimate denial. Cause what I felt whilst meeting her didn't correlate to this result.

I know, I could email her asking for clarification but no, I don't want to be affiliated with her in any ways after this. I emailed a friend of mine who had her as a supervisor as well and I'll wait for his response to see if his mark was as bad as mine.

It's so heartbreaking really. I don't even think I can face her anymore (not that I see her nowadays). In my mind, she's like Darth Vader or Aizen Taichou. Sorry, I could not think of any female characters who became evil and hurt those who believed in them at the moment.

 Source: dreager1

Source: deviantart

So the main reason why I'm all so depressed is because I was let down by the person whom gave me hopes when all I see in the lab was torture. I tweeted her name over and over again when I did my project cause she was so motherly..she was one of the reasons why I still have the spirit to go to the lab early in the morning and even to make me withstand the workload even though it was already 9 pm. She was my inspiration...now she's someone whom I wish I could forget.

On the bright side, Fikri got me a cake trying to cheer me up =)

My hopes were crushed by the very person whom gave them to me in the first place. It's the feeling that I wish none of you would ever have to experience cause it's just so painful. I'm torn asunder...