haha okay im quite done.
alrights so we took an 8-hour train ride from paris to barcelona, changing trains at this small french town of montpellier. our first train was the TGV train.. which is amazingly new and fast and steady (like stable-steady, not the singlish-steady). then we got on the renfe train operated by the spanish and weeelllll, it was a tad different but well, it got us to our destination all the same..
so we arrived in barcelona at about 8pm.. and tried to make our way to the city centre on foot.. winding through the many small streets, relying on our let's go map, which was, to say the least, not the most detailed. soooo we got lost trying to look for that road named del pi, where hostel malda, our first choice (coz it was cheeeap) hostel was.
so after much meandering through the streets and some shady-looking plazas and encountering many differing opinions among our group on where to walk.. we FINALLY found del pi after consulting a shopowner. but ladidum, the owners (an elderly couple) said their rooms were full..
alrights, so it's down to second or third choice hostels.. and somehow we settled on this hostel sun & moon. quite a shady place.. i rem bargaining for the room rates and he promised, i forgot, 18euros if we stayed for 3 nights.. then later raised the price to 20 when we looked quite eager. idiots. anyways the place was quite horrid. i rem the toilet smelled of urine constantly and the bedsheet was really rough and bad. and we had to rent blankets or something.. so we resorted to peeling bedsheets off the empty beds to use as blankets haha. after settling in there and deciding we couldn't possible make this place our home for the next 4 days, we sent our 2 messenger boys (aka the mr chan and retard chen you see in a previous post) to hostel malda to poke around. and some happy retard-free minutes later, they returned with glorious news that even though the elderly couple were too busy enjoying their soccer match (it IS barcelona, after all) to care about our lodgings for tonight, we would be able to check back tomorrow morning for vacancies which they think they would have.
so after some fitful sleep on the scratchy bed, the 2 messenger boys set off next morning to hostel malda again and TADAH! there was a room for 5 available! farewell erxin sun&moon and hello wonderful homely malda! it's a quite a cool hostel.. just one floor of a huge apartment with many rooms for backpackers. very quaint-looking double doors, a living room with tv for soccer, only 3 toilets and a homely feel thanks to the elderly couple. and it's only 15 euros! take that, bloody sun&moon!
after settling into our new hostel.. we began our exploration of barcelona, beginning our walk along the tree-lined la ramblas, the famous stretch of street buskers, florists, pet shops and souvenir stalls in between 2 bustling roads. the pets were amazing. i've never been to chatuchak even though i've heard alot about the pets sold street-side there.. but i don think la ramblas would pale in comparison. there are rabbits, chinchillas, budgerigars, furry otter-looking things, iguanas, reptiles, the list goes on. and the buskers there are really quite creative. there's this guy who's some soccer shen dressed as ronaldinho, who impressed mr enough for him to part with some of his money, some dressed as bronzed statues, cats in rubbish bins, trees, ghouls, violently-pink flower decoration pieces, puppeteers, magicians, you can get whiplash trying to look at everything. haha. can you tell that i love la ramblas? i can just walk up and down and up and down and stop at dunkin donuts for some bites and continue my walk up and down.
anw i was trying my best to look for zara for most part of the day after seeing many many zara bags being paraded around.. and after asking some owners of said zara bags for directions (vague ones, at that) i finally found it just before dinner. wheeeee!! if only sweechee was there. ivina and i looked around while the rest rotted at macs next door and i was in heaven! hahaha. i love zara!
okays so after my shopping trip we traipsed back to the hostel, planning a trip to the brave coast the next day!
the next day, after a really late morning call of 11am, we made our way on foot to the Estacion del Nord, a bus interchange where we got on a 1-hour bus ride to Lloret de Mar, the nearest point on the Costa Brava to Barcelona. honestly, this counts as one of my coldest beach trips.. not a lot of sun, plus we had to wear sweaters around. haha. but wells it was truckloads of fun coz it'd been such a long time since we'd seen the sea and sand! wheee! and the sun did come out for a while so we could peel off our outer layers.. haha. we are quite a zi4 de2 qi2 le4 bunch. haha not much of a tan for us though.
at night, we got a taste of Barcelona nightlife (albeit in a British bar) having some drinks.. and i still maintain that i was not drunk that night.
so after 2 days of shopping and of sun and fun, it was time to immerse ourselves in the heart of Barcelona's artsy-fartsy culture, the works of Gaudi. got our Metro Day Pass and zipped in air-conditioned carriages to Park Guell, where dwell the beautiful mosaic creations of Antoni Gaudi. mosaic ceilings, rooftops, pillars, iguanas, water features.. well-worth the climb-cum-escalator ride up. haha. next up, La Pedrera, where we only got a quick glimpse at the undulating walls and of people walking on its balcony.. didnt really catch our eye la.
continued our maximised usage of the day pass and went to La Sagrada Familia, a huge churchstill under construction coz Gaudi passed away before he could complete it. i just wiki-ed Gaudi and his death is rather sad. apparently he was run down by a tram and none of the cab drivers gave him a ride coz his appearance was too poor. he died three days later at a beggars' hospital. at least his legacy does live on in his artworks.
having almost exhausted Gaudi destinations in the outskirts of the city, we decided to take a trip to even further-in-the-outskirst Nou Camp, FC Barcelona's home ground. first thing that struck me was, it's a really ugly stadium for a team which paid UNICEF to put their name on their kit last season.. really should do something about the structure man.. was quite tired by the time we arrived there, so us girls mainly rotted on the mini-stands in their shop while the guys shopped around contemplating whether pirated or original Barcelona jerseys were more worth it.
Saturday was our last full day in Barcelona and we wasted our day away languorously.. having lunch at this much-raved about high-class-looking restaurant, Les Quinze Nits. there was a queue forming even before their opening hours of 1.45pm and it did look quite posh from the outside. hurriedly checked out let's go recommendation for prices again just in case we were queueing up for something waaayyy outta our league. haha.
and so we had our not-very-satisfying lunch there. my codfish was too salty and the reason why they could have such low prices in such a posh setting, i guess, is coz 95% of their staff are Asian. ya, cheap labour. i wonder if they have a wage floor in Spain.
riggghttsss... so we passed our last day in Barcelona with more walking aimlessly around (and one last peek for me in Zara) and it's off to madrid the next day!
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