My very first goodbye with a passover meal and pancakes after

I had my first goodbye yesterday. Standing at the carpark in front of the new jersey train station, Debra and I hugged goodbye after knowing each other for half a year in melbourne, and one year of dinners and stayovers at her place in america. It would start a chain of "I hope our paths cross one day" and "Do come and visit me in Singapore"

My last night with her family was memorable. It was passover and something I would never have the chance to experience. You never realise how important bread is until passover comes along. I got inducted into the rituals, the hebrew songs which i couldn't catch, the eating restrictions, awesome dessert, gelified fish and family politics. And after 2 long weeks of thinking what to get them, i got them chocolates, only to find out they can't eat corn syrup and nuts during passover. Anyway it was fun telling people i won't be in class because of passover and watching them raise their eyebrows.

After waving goodbye to debs, i spend most of thursday walking around princeton campus. Very pretty, it was an even bigger bubble than penn. They have no crime! The student tour guide said the only crime they have is your roomate stealing your bike to go to school. Everyone there looked very upperclass and preppy. It wasn't even ralph lauren and abercombie preppy. This was Mclaughlin and J Crew preppy. And come on, they have coach and ralph lauren boutiques on campus. Can you imagine having a designer boutique on campus? We have the body shop on the melbourne uni campus and i thought that was the best thing the uni provided me with.

Had pancakes (chocolate, berry and corn) there and returned to good ol' philly with a short trip through north philly. If i could put an image to hell, this would be it. Burnt ruins of houses, graffitied walls, broken windows, shredded barb wire and boarded up doors. I thought west philly was bad, but nothing compared to north philly. There was a wave of silence on the train as it pulled up in north philly. I was quite close to crying because it all looked so depressing and hopeless. From one of the richest part of america to one of the poorest, all in 15 minutes. This is what truly amazes me about this country. The first world and the third world lives literally a hop, skip and a mere train ride away.