spain!

a week in italy, and now a week in spain.... this trip was slightly different cos i've never been to spain before and it was more of a sight-seeing trip more than anything. the girls were so fun to be around as well, reminded me of old times in secondary school, training in the squash courts and in class...

at barcelona, we stayed at the sea point hostel. and this was the view from the hostel entrance. magic... it would have been better if the weather was nicer for us to go out onto the beach and just relax.. not that we didn't try..

it was so windy that day we hurried out to take pictures then had to hurry back before we were blown into the sea! sightseeing came after and we did the most touristy thing ever and hopped onto the tourist bus to see the city...

barcelona was filled with the works of antoni gaudi and his revolutionary designs that incorporated nature and dissolved the use of straight lines. makes everything seem very smooooth in my opinion..

this is the casa balto, one of the more famous works from gaudi. for some reason, his works kinda grew on me throughout the tour of barcelona. it felt intriging, like a mystery world of fairytales just because of its shape and how it's so out of place with the rest of the city.

la sagreda: the museum which we went in for the explanation of gaudi's work and how he managed to accomplish it all. it all reminded me of AEP in upper sec when i had to come up with mocks for my instillation piece and sketch out inspiration and designs after designs.. gaudi did practically the same thing, but on a much larger scale with his hanging models and architectural plans..

serene and i on one of gaudi's chairs. it's supposed to be mouded to you cos there're no straight lines, but i didn't feel any more comfortable.. the design was cute though. :)

and his most famous work of all time: castle la sagrada familia, which is still under construction after hundreds of years. we went in and it was literally a construction site! there were workers and machines of all sorts inside continuing the building process...

park guell next: gaudi's dream of a residential estate where he and other people could retreat to, however not many people shared his idea of beauty and in the end, only 3 units were sold, one was bought my gaudi himself. haha so eventually it because a public park instead!

the famous gaudi lizard's in park guell.. there were so many people trying to take a picture with it we had to squeeze our way through and fight with those japs/koreans for space!

the view from the top of park guell... u could see the whole of the barcelona skyline from here. we should have stayed till sunset! but no time la.. had so many other places to visit..

las rablas: THE shopping street in barcelona. it's always crowded, there're artists and mucisians everywhere and tons of indian souvenior shops. seriously, where do they all come from? even in italy they were everywhere...

and then we headed to the seaside again to catch the view.. all yatchs in he background.. OC-like.. ahhh the life i could have if i had all the money in the world..

i love this shot.. :)

plaza del toros: bull-fighting arena! too bad it wasn't sunday or we could have caught a bullfight.. but apparantly it's rather ghastly but still, i would love to see one.. maybe next time.

and how can anyone come to barcelona and not visit the nou camp?! ahhh home of the best football club in the world (after man utd of course). we took a tour of the grounds and pers now has a new barcelona training kit! he better be happy, it's the most expensive item i got in the whole trip!

inside the press room where the managers and players get grilled about their performances after the match, and where the man-of-the-match usually gets his trophy. woooo. legends have stepped into this room before. the smell of ronaldhino and messi.. ahhh!

so that was that for barcelona... onward to madrid for 2 days:

i don't know how i managed to last this long through an entry without talking about food! woooo the paella and sangria! heavenly. we had that almost everyday for dinner, together with the spanish tapas (side dishes of mostly seafood, potatoes and the likes)

this is me being the greedy pig that i am. tapas = yumyum!

and chiros in the mornings with coffee.. that's the daily menu for 7 days haha

madrid, being the capital city, wasn't very touristy but was like the concrete jungle that is singapore. spain is surprisingly clean! there were trees everywhere and somehow it just reminded me of home. in madrid, all there was to see were fountains, plazas and shops. it's the puerto del sol above, the main shopping district.

and plaza mayor... which i felt wasn't that spectacular. it was just a miniature st. mark's square, even with a few pigeons around.

yet another plaza, this time with colourful buildings.. haha i really can't rmb its name now.

only one word can describe valencia: BEACH.
the weather was fantastic, the sand was soft, the wind was refreshing. it was the life.

and last but not least... our parting shot from valencia...

darn, my holidays have effectively ended. now back at the bridge, moaning about the tons of work to be done, yet not having done much at all. 3 weeks to go...