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i love barcelonaaaaa! hahaha i love it so much i have to start proclaiming my love for it even before i start posting anything else. i love you, barcelona! i love your small streets and big street called la rambla and your lovely ho(s)tel malda and different-from-spanish dialect and how we took damn long to figure out our way from the train station to the city and everything about our 5 days there! and most importantly, i love the zara prices there!!
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!
hello, hello, to the few people still bothering to come to this page.. sorry for the lack of updates, but with PA ending and camps coming, it's hard la ok~
so anyways.. we arrived in paris on our first overnight train, having barely slept a wink, no thanks to the cramped compartment and, i dunno what else. i just know ivina slept the most! haha. i think we each had at most 2-3 hours?
met a hotel tout at the station and i was extremely skeptical at first.. really didnt wanna believe him. but i have forgotten what made me change my mind at that point of time. he seemed quite sincere i think. so anyways we got rooms at a 2-star hotel quite removed from the city centre for hostel rates, hotel belfort. the lift could only fit 3 girls ( 2 with luggage i think) and it's those kinda old-fashioned ones with 2 doors. the whole place was really nice though, and we koped the free toiletries for future use! hahaha
surviving on pure adrenaline, the 5 of us took the train (forgot its name, but it travels further from town than the metro) to the palace of versailles. the queue was quite mad when we arrived, and according to let's go, it was under renovation... so we took pics in front of the palace and chose to forego the famed Hall of Mirrors in there (where the treaty of versailles was signed i think).
so after a rather fruitless trip to the palace, we returned to the city (all dozing off on the train) to, where else, the Eiffel! our pics of the tower looks wonderful against the blue blue sky! honestly it was a really really hot day and i just wanted to get some shelter la. hahah. but we managed to survive the heat and snap many many pics. we crossed the seine river and passed the underwater aquarium and a Palais de Chaillot (mr, if u are amazed by my memory again, i assure u i only know the names after consulting my very dusty map of paris, haha) and walked and walked in the reaaaaally hot weather (i cannot emphasize this enough) to the Arc de Triomphe.
i think the reason why i rem the heat so much is coz my heat rash worsened when i was in Paris. oh wells.
anw we saw some old soldiers arriving at the Arc to pay respects to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which was there since WWI. i rem there was a very old man who was the caretaker of the place, and he kept mopping and sweeping and picking up flowers which dropped from the wreaths placed at the tomb and just cleaning like crazy. moreover, it was a sunday! i think he's underpaid and overworked. but he looked v happy to see the old soldiers, maybe he works there looking forward to these visits.
so anyways i wanted very much to walk down avenue des champ elysees, with its cute boxy trees, coz that's the one street i rem from my last trip to europe like 10 years ago, but we were all too tired to be on foot further. on the metro we got, making our way to the jardin de tuileries in front of the louvre. alot of parisian merry-making there on a hot hot sunday afternoon.. europeans just CHIONG outside once there's just a teensy hint of sunshine.
after letting our jaws drop at the sight of the huuuggge facade of the louvre (which we were supposed to conquer the next day), we went on to walk to the 2 small islets in the middle of the seine river, ile de la cite and ile-something else.. i dunno the name coz the map doesnt indicate it. haha. the ile de la cite houses the notre dame.. didnt really get a good look at it coz the adrenaline was really running out. me, ivina and gerald just sat on sm bench n stoned while jt and mr happily pranced around taking pics, buoyed by couple-on-honeymoon-in-europe-mood. ;P
walked around for QUITE SOME TIME finding food (i particularly rem the extent of my hunger as well) coz all of let's go's recommendations were VERY EX! hai paris is too expensive to live in.. finally found a mid-range jap restaurant. my sashimi, FINALLY! hahaha.
our next day in the city of lights we headed for the louvre museum.. we didnt plan to stay long there, coz our knowledge of art is, to be honest, really limited (although hokkien-speaking mR would probably like to disagree, haha). so somehow, somewhere, we started our tour of the museum in some bright courtyard dotted with marble statues under one of the pyramids, through which natural light poured in, and just kept walking.
the really bare-essentials pamphlet guide brought us to all the 'most-famous-squeeze-it-into-your-few-hours-in-the-louvre' artworks: the hamurrabi code (yes remember jay chou's song, 爱在西元前? this is the 汉姆拉比法典. it actually exists!), the venus de milo, napolean's apartments, egyptian statues of the many gods, a real mummy and the containers of its organs, the wedding at cana and of course.. the mona lisa, where there was a constant crowd milling.
leaving the louvre for lunch, we made a trip to the moulin rouge and i forgot how else we spent our afternoon but all i rem after moulin rouge was tt it was time for dinner HAHA. had dinner at this indian restaurant where gerald n ivina had their fill of spicy food haha. great briyani!
at night we returned to e eiffel for sm amazing night views.. and a dazzling display of shimmering christmassy lights every hour. totally for couples la.. any marriage proposal would succeed there i think. haha.
went back for some forty winks b4 tmr's 8hour-long trip to BARCELONAAAAA, wheeeee!
*oh i rem what happened b4 moulin rouge liao! we went to the train station and realized our trip to beautiful beautiful normandy had to be cancelled coz the travel timings didnt fit into our plans.. sigh. byebye mont st.michel, hello barcelona!
slight digression here: happy twenty-first birthday, jinteng!! haha can't believe we're still writing about our trip which happened like 3 months ago. hehe.
okaysss yuan gui zhen zhuan. so we were stranded at milan. managed to squeeze a booking on the cisalpino (hope i didnt get e name wrong) train which was really quite squeezy! but the scenery from the windows were grreeeeat. went past lugano and regretted not making a stop there... the lakes there were soooo beautiful! lake como is there.. and the bellagio is rather famous for its scenery. oh wells.
arrived at zurich about 9pm, and hurried to find a hostel for the night. were snubbed by the haughty receptionist at our first choice, but were v warmly welcomed by this aussie dude at our 2nd. we were reaaaally lucky coz he was gonna close in half an hour's time.
i think our hostel was situated rather near the red-light district of zurich. either that or zurich pple have a v strong appetite for strip shows coz at every corner, there were shows! haha. i rem i caught a glimpse of what was inside when the door was pushed open by a patron. hmmm but it was too dark. haha, anw the limmat river, which runs through the city, is really romantic by night! haha too bad there was 3 really bright people ard that day la hor, mr and jt. :P
our next day, we split up coz of hmm.. differing agendas. haha. so jinteng and mingrui stayed near home base and explored zurich, while ivina, gerald and i took a 44SFr train ride to luzern, abt an hour away.
luzern's pretty pretty pretty! a lake greeted us once we stepped outta the station.. and everything looked out of a postcard! got a route from the tourist info centre and set off on a slow languorous walk for the day.
the swiss do not need to work, it seems.. everyone is just out, sitting in al fresco sections of cafes, enjoying their breakfast, brunch or lunch under the sun. no one working on a friday afternoon (other than waitresses in cafes and salespeople)! we walked and walked, climbed up some towers to get really great views of the city. did as the swiss did and slacked for quite sm time in a cafe with some tea n coffee and cakes n continued our walk in the evening to the Dying Lion carved into a stone wall above a pond.
just a slow friday afternoon in luzern :)
more of switzerland awaited us in zurich, which 3 of us had yet to explore. but honestly it got a bit sian after some time coz zurich is really a place mostly to sit and relax and drink coffee and read a book by the river. and well, we didnt have books haha. so we didnt manage to gain much, just walked around, window-shopped, admired the many watches on sale and the zurichsee, played some charades on the rooftop of our hostel.. and tried unsuccessfully to try some of the cheese fondue. oh the smell of e fondue! haha. impossible to ignore. wafting up to our hostel from the restaurant nearby, downstairs. it's strong to the extent of being pungent at times.. but we still wanted to try! were snubbed again by irritating waiters, pui!
so we waited it out at our rooftop, playing charades, hurling verbal abuse at irritating snobbish waiters, until the time came for us to take our FIRST overnight train to paris. exciting, non?
ivina woke up this morning feeling under the weather.. but once she stepped into the roman catholic capital and tiniest country in the world, vatican city, all her unwell-ness was forgotten! it really is hard not to be impressed by the grandeur of the architecture in vatican city.
we listened to our friendly hostel staff and woke up bright and early to avoid the crowds at the vatican.. so despite missing our bus stop, we still made it to the vatican with a relatively short queue in front of us.
once you step into vatican city, the basillica greets you in its wide expanse, with a tall obelisk marking its centre and columns topped with statues encircling it. st peter's square is HUGE man! many many chairs there for mass held on sunday. vatican is so small (for a COUNTRY) that once u exit the square, you're in rome again! it just consists of the sistine chapel, the museums and st peter's square.
and we checked out the swiss guards there as well. haha, the one in my pic is quite shuai! anw their uniforms are atrocious la. can u imagine some guy sneaking into the museums to steal artwork and the swiss guards try to creep up on him to catch him in that conspicuous attire? the thief can spot them from a MILE away!!!
so anw, cute swiss guards aside, we got thru the security check and entered the church. it's sooo beautiful. u really have to take your time and walk along the aisles and check out all the intricacies of each chapel, michelangelo's pieta sculpture of Mary and Jesus, all the popes and their sculptures. There was a small mass going on when we went in and listening to them singing the hymns on such sacred ground just gave me goosebumps.
after letting ivina taking videos of the church and basilica until her memory card ran outta space, we split up to go to the sistine chapel, while the lovebir.. *cough* i mean, jinteng n mingrui went to castle sant angelo.
so we walked past the queue that had gathered to get into the church and laughed coz they werent early like us, nehnehnehnehnehneh (ok la it was probably just me who did that)! got out of st peter's square and back to rome where the queue for the sistine chaptel began. so we started queuing abt about 9am..
and queued.. rounded one corner, no entrance in sight..
queued some more.. rounded another corner.. still no entrance..
passed by this elderly lady who was begging for money. one side of her head was red and raw as though the skin n hair had come off.. hope someone got her to a doctor or sth. her money bowl was quite full, coz many of us were rather shocked by the sight of her scalp.
so anyways, we rounded at least 3 corners, queued for about 1.5 hours and saw countless signs pointing us to the direction of the sistine chapel, until we reached the entrance. got our student priced tickets to the vatician museums and followed MORE signs guiding us to the sistine chapel. i really felt like the sistine chapel was some sort of myth that people came up with and that it didnt actually exist coz we had to travel so far!!! like journey to the west.
we crossed rooms after rooms dedicated to various artists - raphael's room, etc etc - galleries after galleries of modern art and sculptures, occassionally eavesdropping on some tour guides talking about the history of a certain work. it's REALLY alot of rooms ok. sistine chapel became 传说中的 sistine chapel haha.
FINALLY arrived at the chapel. we werent allowed to take pics in there, although pple around us were trying their best to snatch a snap despite getting reprimanded by the security personnel there. haha. every 3 seconds, when the volume in the chapel began to rise, the security would shout 'quiet please!' and silence would befall the place. so in e end still quite noisy.
the last judgement was really amazing.. esp when u considered the fact that michelangelo painted the ceiling and all the murals on standing upright. imagine the stress on his neck when he painted the ceiling!
so rushing off from the vatican after spending an insufficient halfday there, we got on board a eurostar train (the first use of our eurail pass!) to venice. arrived about 7 plus and began our search for a hostel. the hostels in venice are usually more expensive coz it's such a touristy place.. but eventually we managed to get a one-star hotel, cheaper than our hostel-of-choice.
check out how the one-star hotel looked like (there's even the helpful ONE star on the signboard). haha.. we didnt actually stay here.. we stayed opp it, at its one-star sister hotel or something, but e hotel recep was here.
so we set off next morning after quite a nice stay in e first hotel room of our trip - e guys' room even had a tv! - to explore the calles and fondamentas of venice. it's really a city to get lost in.. and then take ur map and figure your way out. haha. managed to meander our way to piazza san marco, where it was a nice and wide expanse of space, a breather from the small alleys we made our way there from. there were more pigeons than people there i think.. and some young punks tried running towards the pigeons, making them all take flight and putting us in fear of pigeon droppings for a while, until they all settled down again.
it was very leisurely walking ard venice in the nice cool weather.. saw the gondoliers in their stripey tops and by their gondolas (too ex for us paupers), the ponte rialto, the grand canal, all the traghetti (small sampan-like boats) and jam-packed ferries bringing people around venice on its waterways.
venice also has ALOT ALOT of masks which were sold practically in every other shop.. the big ones are really intricate in detail and pretty! and they cost a bomb too. haha. too bad gerald didnt manage to find his teardrop one.
so after 2 free breakfasts at the cafe near the hostel, we left venice on the morning of the 19th on another regionale train to milan. after having quite a bit of luck in finding last-minute-vacant hostels, milan proved to be insurmountable. we checked with the very very helpful tourist information uncle and found out that due to this furniture trade fair thing in milan which has attracted like every businessman in europe, hotels AND hostels were full for the week. SIAN. byebye milanese duomo and ermm.. shopping haha.
so this is all we have to show for milan, the train station. haha. hurriedly made plans to leave italy for zurich, switzerland next. up north we go!
bagpack with neccessties for three weeks: check, ryanair cheapo-looking air ticket: check, empty water bottle: check, some.. erm.. body butter and nailclippers (haha): check, fully-charged and memory-filled cameras: check..
AAAAND WE WERE OFF TO PISA!!
we arrived in pisa friday evening and took in the immensely different italian atmosphere. the airport seemed more congested, abit less orderly and the people, alot more good-looking! hahaha. forza italia!!
took bus #1 to our hostel-in-mind, madonna della acqua and realized we were QUITE outta the city centre when we arrived. nevertheless, the hospitable host, who insisted on learning how to pronounce every one of our names was really nice and he sorta put our minds at ease (and honestly it seemed there werent many more choices for us in the next 5 miles, anyways). realized however, the acqua in the name referred to a swampy, water thing beside the hostel which bred the ONLY and rather ferocious mosquitoes i had seen in europe so far.
so walking along the only road in front of our hostel, we took the only bus line there back to the city, in search of the heavenly risotto recommended in let's go. honestly, this was probably the best food let's go recommended, so don't trust the food recommendations in there, people! unless you're desp, like us haha.
next morning we set off early to the field of miracles, where the baptistero and catherdral share the leaning tower's glory. and YES me, ivina and jinteng fell into the touristy trap of posing as though we're pushing/supporting the tower. it's hard to resist when everyone around u is doing it!!
got on a bumpy, noisy but blissfully empty regional train to firenze.. thankfully, the train wasnt late!
i remember a sec 3/4 chi textbook with a chapter on florence.. and telling my friends i wanna go italy for my honeymoon after that.. and all i did in florence was to shop like crazy at the san lorenzo flea market HAHAHA. the leather goods there are not bad!
we walked around the city centre, watched VERY interesting buskers along the uffizi, ogled at michaelangelo's david ( i don't really know if it's the original one), crossed the ponte vecchio - the bridge w many shops on it, took many pics w the duomo.. and plodded our way around in search for this famed gelato as claimed by let's go. AGAIN, bad to rely on their recommendations. good gelato isnt hard to find in italy.. haha. metal tins and grey bananas :)
so sunday morning we set off for rome.. the magnificent capital of italia..
our arrival was rather marred by the very-packed-no-vacancy hostels and hot sun, which we sweated under, trying to find a roof to cover our heads with. in e end we did find a place to stay the night, at alessandro downtown. got a map from the hostel staff and a route to follow and off we went!
walking becomes a second nature to you when a) you wanna save money b) the hostel staff scares u about the metro and umm.. c) u wanna save more money. so we walked and walked and walked.. to roma termini, to piazza della republica, down along via nazionale, past the monument of vittorio emmanuel, along via fiori imperiali (where the ancient city comes to life), around the colosseum and via sacra, the oldest road in rome. the colosseum was closed by e time we arrived, so we walked back up via del corso, the street of tonnnnnnes of shops (but we were so tired we werent in the mood for that), to piazza del popolo for more gelato and onwards to fontana di trevi.
the fountain was wonderful! so crowded even at night.. all the statues (of i think zeus and other gods and goddesses) surrounding it carved in white marble.. and the rushing sound of water drowning the hustle and bustle of the city..
the next day we woke up bright and early to explore more of the eternal city.. followed the map religiously until we got to piazza navona, which housed the fountain of the four rivers, with a damn tall obelisk set in the centre.. unfortunately, the fountain was closed for maintenance coz its marble was getting damaged by the running water and whatnot.. so all we could see were small snatches of bernini's work through wired fences. but the buildings surrounding the piazza were breath-taking enough to erase some of the disappointment, standing pristine white against the blue sky.
the pantheon was our next stop.. the very ancient-looking building with a hole in its roof, called the oculus. the guard there informed us that the interior would never get wet even if it rained.. but we didnt really understand his explanation of HOW that happened. haha. the pantheon was actually converted into from a pagan church to a christian one as some roman emperor (constantine, i think) was trying to spread christianity around rome.. and it houses the tomb of the first king of rome, vittorio emmanuel, and the artist, raphael. it's actually quite quiet in there despite the crowds.
so we continued our stroll, perambulation, saunter, trudge, march, traipse, shlep (what a word!) around rome, got lost in vittorio emmanuel's monument, and ended up where we wanted to be on the first day.. inside of the colosseum!!
the queue was sooo super long and there was a mad rush for the 3pm guided tour coz it meant that u could cut the long queue. but us, being poor penny-pinching students on a budget trip, totally averted our eyes from the guide and even tried to use our german residence permit to get cheaper tickets (it was unsuccessful). i didnt think the trip into the colosseum was v well-worth the money spent.. but wells, it is THE colosseum. haha. maybe just too much ruins for the days.
the roman forum was full of ruins as well, and without a guide, it's REALLY hard to make out which ruin was what a few centuries ago. so usually we just guessed or relied on passing english-speaking guides and tiny signs. but we DID find our temple of saturn after a long long time.. haha yay!
our tired legs didnt manage to make it up palantine hill where a she-wolf, according to legend, suckled the founder of rome, romulus.. so we made our way back to our hostel for free, but worst-ever-tasted pasta which ivina thoroughly enjoyed.. haha.
more on italy! this photo-arranging, and entry-writing business is a TAD tiring for my taxpayer-exhausted mind. BUT! i will persevere!! haha. hope no one fell aslp reading..
SURPRISE!!
haha im amazed we're still able to blog here! okays people (or maybe, person, haha), updates on our three-and-a-half-week-long western europe trip soon! :))) patience.
