Barcelona - Paella and Tapas Everywhere!

We’re in Barca now and so far our first day here has been AWESOME! The main food (which we see everywhere here) is Paella – baked rice with seafood or chicken and Tapas – various fingerfood. Just today we ate 2 paellas each! Quite crazy coz it’s like one big pan of rice each..twice a day is a little too much carbo..but damn tasty can! Here’s the pic that sums up the meals for today:

This was our 2nd Paella for the day – a mixed seafood and chicken platter for 2. Sticky and super yummy but just a tad too salty. The first one was at a touristy place where we also had Sangria, which is a red concoction that tastes like vodka and cherry/strawberry coke, and looks like Ribena but waaay more lethal.

We shared this HUGE mug of Sangria and were damn seh after lunch that we had to go back to the hotel to chill for an hour.

But after the drowsiness wore off, we went SHOPPING!!! Shopping in Barca is pretty good! Things were generally cheap (if only they were in Sing$) at below 20euros. I usually get things at the range of 5-20 Euros, but mostly at an average of 12 Euros. The fit and cut of clothes here are so much better! :)

The later part of Day 1 here was spent at the gorgeous ‘Magic Fountain’ at Espanya (the Metro Stop). Basically it was like the Bellagio Fountain in Vegas where the water dances to the music. But it was in front of this castle like thing with many stairs, so that was very grand.

  

See, got so hard to make nice fountains meh!! Rome had like one million fountains everywhere but they were all BORING. Except maybe the Trevi Fountain, but that place was too congested and small compared to this. Rome sucks. (haha oh we had more bad experiences with service and food there even on the very last day in Rome)
Oh, and guess what, we met Joseph’s gf at the fountain too! That makes it the 3rd familiar Singaporean we met since Johnny at Amsterdam and Jiaxin at Rome. Small world..so heartwarming la. :)


Ok time for bed now, the paella we just ate is making me so so sleepy! Gd night world!

Skipping so many posts!!

In Rome now, last night actually. Going Barcelona tmr but there's no internet either!! Here gotta rush coz the weird Indian recept guy is chatting on his phone opposite my sofa and i'm wearing shorts. WL's eye is a bit better but he's off to bathe 1st. Hard to share internet.

Rome is sucky so far, i've written a few MSWord blog posts but it takes crazy long to upload pics here so will update ASAP! Oh god, give me some good internet with privacy soon!!

Ok bye gtg now. :(

Rome and Conjunctivitis

Today was a hectic one starting at 930am when we left the comfort of our apartment-like hotel (Asian Rest House). Day 1 of Rome with Day 7 of Conjunctivitis: Painful and Torturous. Poor WL’s right eye was SUPER sore and red and pus had clumped up his eyelashes. See also xim tia (heartpain).

This pic here is the better pic when we were in Amsterdam, i think like Day 4 or 5 of the infection. Anyway as I was saying, I guess today can be described as one of the worst parts of our holiday when we had to find an eye specialist after going to a public hospital and they didn’t have a doc who could deal with eye probs *rolls eyes*. The horrible thing about Rome is that NOBODY SPEAKS ANY BASIC ENGLISH. Wth! That’s like the universal language can! And the thing that irks me most is that they play the latest pop songs from the USA like everywhere..subways, trams etc. Just go and learn the language first already!

 

BUT, well, as they say..when in Rome..we just Chicken talk to Duck lor.

So anyway, we managed to get to the Trevi Fountain today, but I wanted to experiment with the new pair of boots i bought from Paris for 5Euros – which was a bad decision – and after 2 hours i felt like I was walking on hot coals. Thus, walking down the most famous areas of Rome was a limping girl dragging a blind boy. :(

Wasn’t a very happy experience, especially when the sun came down super sharply in the noon and tempers flared. Even more so when stupid tourists took DAMN UGLY pics of us. Who takes pics of people’s bodies ONLY when the Trevi Fountain is behind us?! Of course take the background also right!! *fumes* That’s the problem with travelling as a couple. Oh well.

Dinner time now, let’s hope Days 2, 3 and 4 of Rome sees a recovery of the conjunctivitis. It is as scary as it sounds.


Ok bye!

PARIS!

6.55pm, Monday 17th May 2010-05-17 (Amsterdam time)

There you go! Here’s as close a pic i could take to capture the breath-taking awesomeness of Paris’s most monumental icon – The Eiffel Tower! Damn chio at night!

Anyway, I just had to put that at the beginning of this post to epitomize my thoughts of Paris. (I shall try to sieve out the most memorable/picturesque photo of each city for the first picture of each post from now on.)

To begin with, I’ll like to say that we’re in Amsterdam now, but by the time i get this post up we’ll probably be in Rome. Sucks to have no internet! And i was too busy/tired to blog when we were in Paris and Brussels. So yup here goes..on MSWord that is.


Well, we started our trip freezing our asses off. Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam were all below 15 deg!!! Mostly below 10. And i only brought this ugly brown overall sweater which helped to keep the cold out but was unfortunately, REALLY fugly. I REGRET not bringing the thick black coat sis offered to lend me instead!!! *boohoos* argh. Oh wells that’s just a little sad point regarding the photos.


Our first day in Paris - as soon as we got off the plane - was spent checking out the Louvre. Really felt like we were in The Da Vinci Code movie, with all the glass triangles and all. But i think the movie made the pyramids look cooler/larger than they actually are.

The inside of the Louvre was massive; a crazy amount of historical pictures of Jesus/Mary/Roman figures/Egypt and of course, the Mona Lisa. We were SUPER shagged by the time we found the Mona Lisa. The museum was like a freaking maze. Oh, and there was ALOT of nudity. Haha..apparently women in older times wore dresses below their chests...and flab was the ‘in’ thing.
Second Day – Going up the Eiffel Tower!!!


We decided to go up the Eiffel Tower in the day so we’d have better shots of the view. They installed new lifts since I was here 10 years ago! Lol..that was one good thing coz now the lifts went up more smoothly than the crickety and slow ones they had last time I remember. This time we went all the way to the 3rd floor which is the highest pinnacle of the tower. That Summit Lift was really damn scary. And i guess going up in the day didn’t waive my fear of heights haha.

Oh, and we saw a couple taking wedding photos on the tower! Respect man! The top was so cold and she still managed to run around wearing a tube dress..and it was also very crowded coz of the swarms of tourists gathered around. Hmm..overall, my take is that it is not advisable to take your wedding pictures ON the tower. I prefer pictures OF the tower actually..like this one:

Yup, well besides these 2 attractions, we there was the Arc De Triomph and The Notre Dame Cathedral which was so beautiful inside i think it would turn even the rebellious pious. And we climbed up the tower, which was a back-breaking and dizzying 400 winding steps. Winding as in really the spiral kind in towers. No wonder the Hunchback of Notre Dame was hunched la!

Notre Dame Cathedral

Beautiful stained glass windows everywhere.

Famous stone gargoyle on top of Notre Dame Cathedral.

After climbing the steps up and down the cathedral we chanced upon Bertillion Ice Cream. It is THE BEST ice cream on EARTH!! They should totally import in to SG coz it was so crazily delicious! Maybe it was just the Rum and Raisin and Dark Choc combi, but both were so gao and shiok even in the cold weather. We’re totally going back to try it in our last 3 days of Grad trip!

And on the 3rd day of our stay in Paris, which was also the last full one, we visited the Basillica Church and The Wall of Love (which was not much, just words in different languages) and finally the night scene of The Eiffel Tower to end off our stay with a nice touch.


Yupyups! That’s the summary i have for beautiful Paris, the land of romance and French-kisses..now it’s off to some chow in Amsterdam – my last night here! Update on Brussels my FAVE city so far! It’s even better than Paris! :)

Paris, tomorrow!

Well..the time has finally come for me to fulfill the dream of going to Europe (again), this time with more romantic company haha i must say. It's exactly 10 years - a decade - since i've been there in Sec 1; i'm sure some places must have changed.

Honestly, i can't remember much of it since we went on packaged tour and you know how they jump from place to place in spans of 1-2 days..i guess most of the architecture blurred into a mix for me.

But, i remember going up the Eiffel tower and getting scared s***less. Acrophobia lah. Fear of heights..even going up the SG Flyer was knee-wobbling. Oh wells. Hope this time it'll make a diff when i go up in the day! I will seek to get as nice a picture of it as the one above!!

Which brings me to the point about the itinerary we've got with us this time round. My very own packaged trip! The bf, being pretty free in his last sem with only FYP and design project, researched INTENSIVELY on our itinerary and it is now 30 pages long with 9000 words! Somebody please give him a pat on the back for doing 2 final year reports simultaneously!!!

Even i am awed at how magnificently hardworking he is! *Clap Clap!* My contribution - the places of interests..but the credit goes to him for 'connecting the dots' which is way harder..like how to go, how far from our hotel, what train, got student discount or not, what time the attraction closes, what the weather is like there and even reviews. Damn amazing.

I absolutely have to put this bright kid's picture here with our Europe Thesis:

Printed in colour leh! All 30 pages!

Thank you the-best-decision-i-ever-made-bf!! Our grad trip will be so AWESOME because of your fantastical brain! *muacks*

Yupyup 2am tomorrow night..Paris here i come!!! :)

My Last Night in Kent Ridge Hall...

This is it. My very last night in the place i've called home for 4 years. i knew this day would eventually come..but reality is always the pain after a slap on the face. *sigh*

No words can describe the weight of knowing I will never again have this place to come to every night after a long day of work or even on days when i have no work at all. To play, to gossip, to laugh, to cry, to do anything i want at all..with the company of beloved neighbours.

Living in a semi-D has its perks..but hardly any friendly, talkable-to neighbys. :(

Anyways..today was spent making goodbye cards to my precious neighbys..i tried to include most people already but abit shag to do too many in one day!! So to those who happen to read this space and see the pic below, pls do not be offended or anything! I just like to take pics of my rare works of 'art'. lol.

And this is my room for this past year..A307 (charlotte's ex-room):

It is messy, it is small, it is effective, but most importantly, it is mine.

I'll love you forever KR A Block!!

Thank you and Goodbye! :(