The A.C. (KL, not California)

KL. Well, there is sooo much that i could write about my time in KL. So many impressions, so much i've learned in so little time. Mainly underground of course - sitting in a classroom in the hotel.
And obviously there was air condition all over the hotel. Bloody freezing at times. And you can't really turn it off in your room - if u do, it'll start as soon as you leave the room and then be read for a cold welcome when you reenter. All that bringes you dangerously close to catching a cold.
Add to that the fact of leaving the hotel at least once a day in the evening. It's hot, almost a hundred percent humidity. Real air, not conditioned. And almost guaranteed you'll get into one of those heavy rainfalls that start within a minute. So most of the time you get back to the hotel, running through rain. You arrive a lil'bit wet. Enter the hotel. Freeze :) Hot showers and aspirin help u survive.

Another cool thing they have in KL: a monorail!
"What's it called?"
"Monorail!"
"I can't hear you..."
"Monorail!"
[...]
"Monorail, monorail, MONORAIL!!!"
Always had that Simpsons song on my mind when taking the monorail. For those of u who have no idea what i'm talking about, watch more Simpsons. For me. Hehe.

Oh yes, and i have to write something about the food. On arrival day we had dinner in the hotel. Big Asian buffet. I had already been to Chinatown that day, taking in a lot of odors. And now i added a lot of tastes. And then there was this thing. Looked like a tower. Strangely brown. The chocolate fountain. First time i've seen such a thing. So i had to try it. Even though i'm not the biggest fan of sweets. Well, it tastes as expected, whatever you have on your stick is just covered with chocolate. It's fun doing it, 'breaking' into the chocolate flow.
During the week we almost always had lunch at that place. I fell in love with the wok. You pick some stuff, mainly fresh vegetables, and give it to the cook. Wok on fire, real fire. Yummy. So fresh vegetables yet still cooked. I know wok was good in Europe, but never had such a good'un.

The last two and a half days were dedicated to save driving. So more lectures, but also actual driving. They split us up into groups because we were too many for the number of driving instructors (all real Australians, funny accents. Bit hard to understand at times). Which also meant we had a free afternoon when the other group was driving. Went to a nice park, really nice one, with a big lake. On the way there we went over three zebra crossings over a highway(!) and got into heavy rain. But when we arrived there was sunshine. At the other end of the park there was the world's biggest birdpark. You know, like a zoo with a net atop of it. Quite fun. Hope i'll get to blog some pics soon.

Oh yeah, about the driving. During the theoretical lessons the teacher was talking about "right-hand driving" all the time like it was the normal thing - which it obviously was for him - and to tell us how normal it was he gave some other example countries. For Europe he randomly choose the UK as an example, what an coincidence that they also drive there on the left side of the street...
Anyways, it was my first time driving on the left side. Quite confusing. And things happening including the classing things, like turning on the windshield wiper when you want to turn on the indicator. The assessment of my first ten minutes said something like i was "driving a bit too aggressive due to my insecurity". But good enough to continue. With a commentary driving: you're driving and permanently talking about what u see and what u do. Fun. I passed as CWS, "confident with supervision", in Malaysia.

By the way, whilst in the cab to the airport it started pouring down. Heaviest rain i've ever seen. Especially from in the car. With flash and thunder less than a second away. Directly in front of us. Quite impressive. The traffic also moved from four into two lanes at one point because a palm-like tree had fallen on the road.

And one comment about KLIA: Japanese architect, according to my Indian cab driver. Quite new. Looks good. But one major mistake, mister architect: after checking in we headed to the boarding area, whatchacallit. Through the security check. And then we were in the waiting area. Enough seats, felt somehow like VIE. Only one big difference: There were no toilets! So as soon as you pass the security checks and wait for boarding - which can take quite some time - no peeing etc. Hopefully you don't have diarrhea...

Closing comment to my week in KL: 65 people in a room. 22 nationalities. 5 Europeans. 1 Austrian. I liked it.