Paris Redux

With celebrations of graduation done yesterday, it’s time to proceed on to the climax of Mama’s holiday tour. Of all the places in Europe, I felt that Paris was one place which Mama deserved to have a look at. Since time is a constraint for her, I could only pick one destination outside England and naturally that destination is Paris. Besides, it’ll be great to reminisce the fact that I had visited the French capital twice within the year. We made our way to the Leeds Bradford airport where our Jet2 flight is scheduled to be at 10am. However, it got delayed by an hour and we ended up waiting for it at the lounge. While waiting, I found out that Ling Wei is also on the same flight me and he’s also bringing his mother to Paris. Haha..what a coincidence and we are both giving our mothers the same holiday treat. We reached Paris CDG Airport at around 2pm or so and proceeded to take the train down to the city center.

Finding our hotel ain’t that hard because it’s located in one of the main streets. I learnt my lesson from Barcelona, so this time I made sure I double checked the location. At the hotel however, we had a small problem in locating our room because of the way the rooms are connected in the building. The room itself is ain’t too shabby. In fact, I found it to be better than the one which I stayed with Leo although the pricing is about the same and mine includes breakfast too. After putting our items in the room, we headed out. The first destination I had in mind was the Notre Dame since it’s gonna be closed in the evening, so it’s good to have a look inside it. We started walking from St. Michael’s square since that’s the place in which the free tour starts. However, we are not following any free tour as I would be the one giving the personal tour to Mama instead. I followed through the almost same exact route that the free tour covered and as expected, we managed to reach Notre Dame after the long walk through the streets of Paris. We stayed inside the Notre Dame until it closes. After that, we quickly made our way to the Eiffel Tower. Unlike the previous time, I’ve smarten up by taking a train to the nearest Metro to the Eiffel Tower. I went to my favourite spot to take photos with the Eiffel the second time. We also took the opportunity to head down to the base of the Eiffel. Ah, all of these must have been quite an eye-opener for Mama. With the drizzling weather, it was quite hard to get a decent shot of ourselves with the Eiffel Tower. Once we were satisfied with the photo-taking, we departed from the area before it started to rain even more heavily. By then it was almost night-time. We ate our dinner at a kebab stall (cheap option as usual) before returning to the hotel for a rest. Gotta get some rest before a long day tomorrow.

French breakfast in the morning at the hotel was superb. It was scrumptious with plenty of pastries, jam, butter, cheese and bread to go around. The only thing lacking is some proper meat and ham like those in Amsterdam. The breakfast area was kinda cramped but we managed to squeeze ourselves onto a table. We needed to check out from the hotel after breakfast since we weren’t going to go back to the hotel anymore. I had made sure earlier that I carry a minimum load since I’ll be moving around with my bag for the whole day. The first destination on the list is the Louvre. I was aware of the crazy hour-long queue to the Louvre that I saw earlier in April so there is definitely a need to be there early. The Louvre was somewhere which Leo and I missed the last time and I promised myself that I’ll definitely make my way there this time round. We travelled by train to the Louvre. It seems that the whole compound is actually attached to the Metro. There was already a queue but it was not as long as the one up on the surface. Woahhh, to think that everyone rushed to line-up upstairs when it’s smooth-flowing underground. With my international student card, I managed to obtain a free entry into the Louvre! Woohoooo! Mama paid around €10 for hers. So, off we went to explore the place once we got our tickets. The Louvre museum is a massive compound and it has 3 different wings for visitors to explore – Sully, Richelieu and Denon. Because of time constraints, I could only explore 1 wing fully while the other 2 had to be breezed past in a jiff. There are plenty of artworks, sculptures and paintings to admire. One of the more impressive parts of the museum is the fully furnished royal quarters which give visitors a peek inside the palace’s luxurious lifestyle. There are Egyptian and Babylonian artefact housed inside too. Of course, visitors can’t miss the most famous inhabitant of the Louvre – the Mona Lisa. The room where it was housed was crowded to the brim. Fortunately, I had my super-zoom camera which allows me to capture the Mona Lisa from the distance at high resolution. The size of the painting is actually very small and it’s not as big as what many people assumed it to be. Ahhh, that’s another small lifetime achievement fulfilled – having a look at the real Mona Lisa. =D

One of my Leeds lecturer suggested that I head up the Arc de Triomph instead of the Eiffel Tower to get a bird’s eye view of the city. We had to queue up for quite some time before we could get to the top. It was a tough climb up the stairs of the Arc and at the top, I needed a minute to catch my breath. Nevertheless, all the climbing was not for nothing. The view at the top of the Arc is truly amazing. As the Arc is the centre and a roundabout at the same time, I could get a 360 degrees view of the city, stretching to as far as the business district known as the Defence. At another angle, I could spot the Eiffel Tower in the distance. After feeling satisfied exploring on the top, we walked down to the surface. Apparently, there is a French Legion commemoration ceremony and the area around the ‘Eternal Flame’ is cordoned off for the veterans to gather. With the little time left before evening comes, we went hunting for my brother’s birthday present. We combed through both sides of the shopping district and we finally settled for a bag at the Adidas shop. We bought an additional duffle bag to contain some of my things which I want Mama to bring back to Singapore.

Our mode of transportation back to England was by the night Eurostar train to London since that was the only period of time I could ensure that our time in Paris is maximised. We went to the French fast food chain known as ‘Q’ to take away some food and went to wait at the train station earlier than our scheduled departure time. In fact, I expected our train to be listed at the screen. At around 30 minutes before the departure time, I sensed that something was amiss when our train still had not listed the boarding gate yet. I quickly rushed to inquire about the place to board the Eurostar train and to my horror, we were actually at the wrong place. Oh silly me! That was when I realised that we actually needed to go past immigration too since we are travelling into England, the land of fussy clearances. Arghhh..both mama and I quickly went up and it seems that the gate was about to close already and worse of all, we’ve not filled up the immigration cards, something which we did not expect because we thought that we only need to do that over in England. It seems that for trains, immigration cards have to filled right at the country of departure. With all that fumble, we were fortunate that the officer waivered the need and proceeded in just checking our boarding pass and passport. 10 minutes later, our Eurostar train departed. Whew! That was a close call and a stupid bummer too if we had missed the train after arriving so early on time. I had actually wanted to experience going through the English Channel’s underwater tunnel but I was so tired that I ended up dozing off. When I woke up, we were already gonna reach King’s Cross station. From there we took a connecting train to Leeds at reached at about 2am+. We did some quick packing up upon reaching the house since Mama would have to take an early train there to Manchester to check in for the flight back to Singapore.

Things did not turn out as planned in the morning when I accompanied Mama to the train station. The train scheduled to take Mama was cancelled. This meant that we had to take another train at the risk of being late for check in which starts at 11am. Thank God that by the time we reached Manchester Airport, check-in is still on-going. One interesting sight that I spotted while I was waiting with Mama is that I spotted members of Blackburn FC coming out. There was one person I spotted to be Michel Salgador because of his golden locks. Lol, that’s a mini treat on its own but nobody at the airport seemed to be bothered about their presence. I stayed with Mama until she went past the boarding gate. The whole journey of accompanying Mama through the process of departure was vital because this would be a mini rehearsal of the real thing when it’s my turn to return to Malaysia on 30th August. I was a little sad to see Mama go but I knew that it won’t be long before I get to see her again. I picked the cheaper option to return back to Leeds which is by bus. Since I didn’t get a good sleep yesterday, I dozed off quickly on the bus. It’ll be quite some time before my next big activity in August so I’ll just chill out and laze around in Leeds for the moment.

Benvinguts a Barcelona

I woke up really early at around 3am to pack my things and prepare to depart the place early so as to ensure that I get to the airport on time. I settled all the immigration checkpoint matters and had around 45 min to spare at the transit area. The plane was supposed to take off at 7.45am but it was delayed. Spanair operates as an internal carrier around Spain and it is somewhat like a Spanish version of Air Asia. The flight to Barcelonna took around 1hr 15min. Once I touch down at El Prat Airport, I proceeded straight to find and purchase the Barcelona Card. Unlike Madrid, the Barcelona card covers all transportation and includes some discounts for attraction too. It seems that the cost of a train ride from the airport to Barca’s city centre is around 10 Euros. That’s a lot compared to Madrid where I pay a mere 2 Euros to get to Barajas. Since I have the Barca card, it’s included inside and I guess I’ll need to pay that 10 Euros when I return.

The first impressions of Barca that I have is that the weather is gonna be as hot as Madrid. But the main difference that I spotted instantly was the presence of palm trees and I remembered that Barcelona is a seaside city. I reached the city centre station at around 10am+ and transferred to another line. Even by just looking at the train lines, I can tell that Barca is a much of messy city than Madrid. The trains in Madrid are operated under one standard Metro company but in Barcelona, there are different types of trains – much like Malaysia’s LRT and Monorail. For the stop that is the nearest to my hostel, I have to take the FGC train. These FGC trains are a lot older than the Metro trains and they look rather run-down. By the time I made my way to the El Putxto stop, which is where I’m supposed to be at, it was already 11am. I thought that it would be a jiffy to search for the hostel and it wouldn’t be too hard but it turned out that I was taking things for granted by not checking properly on the exact location. I didn’t even write down the proper address! I circled around the area for countless amount of times. I was on the right street but somehow, I couldn’t find the correct shop lot for it. Without the proper lot number, it’s gonna take ages and I can’t find any free internet nearby. I was on the verge of giving up when I bumped onto the correct door. This is crazy. The hostel is so inconspicuous and there’s not even a proper signboard. I went up and the reception front door was big wooden door which was locked. I had to bang a couple of times before somebody responded to it. Ahhh, it seems that this so-called hostel is actually a university residence. My room has nothing except a bed, a table and a cupboard. There’s not even a fan, which is not good news for a weather like Barca. The funny thing is that it has a fridge inside the room of all things. Oh well, at least I could store some cold drinks inside or chocolates. In addition to that, there’s also a familiar smell of basic uni hostel accommodation which I’m very acquainted with during my first two years of undergraduate studies. Toilets are shared and they are located quite a distance away. Woahh..the standards here are certainly a far cry from the one I stayed in at Madrid but I gotta make do with it since I wanna save money. The only extra good thing that this hostel has is that it has a kitchen with water dispenser and microwave. This provided an avenue to actually buy raw food from supermarket and heat it up myself. That is really a useful money-saving tool considering that I am confident that I won’t be able to find a Museo Jamon clone in Barca.

I was pretty exhausted and would wanna sleep for a while after searching so hard for the hostel. However, I also knew that I had to cover some ground to ensure that the free coupons from my Barca card are not wasted. The first destination that I’ve decided to go is CosmoCaixa – which is somewhat like a science center sponsored by the Spanish Caixa Bank. It turned out to be further away than expected from the FGC station and I had to walk up a steep luxurious neighbourhood to reach the CosmoCaixa. The interiors look superbly new and modern plus the aircon is blasting high. Ahhh, the aircon is most useful with the burning Barca heat outside. There was much to offer in CosmoCaixa for people of all ages and I’m quite impressed by the range of scientific exhibitions that they have there. There’re dinosaur bones, strange marine creatures, recycling models, and physics exhibition. The most impressive one for me was the presence of an Amazon rainforest right smack within the building itself. It was built in such a way that one can have a cross-section look of the rainforest through the glass windows. Once I’m satisfied with exploring around, I made my way down the hill and took the train back to city center to get dinner. In the process, I took the opportunity to explore the city centre too. Hmmmm..for some reason or so, the supermarkets were closed early so I had to pick one restaurant outlet to take away. I decided to try the Pans Company because it looked pretty much like an ubiquitous Spanish Subway company. I didn’t try it in Madrid, so I thought that maybe I could give it a shot here. It’s not exactly cheap food but at least it fills the stomach. Anyways, I got myself an early rest on the first day as I try to figure out how to spend as many coupons from the Barcelona card as possible.

For the second day of Barcelona, I started off with the La Familia Sangrada which is a basilica that is still under construction even after more than 100 years! Work had began in 1882 and it’s completion date is purported to be 2026. The queue to enter the basilica is extremely long and I had to queue for a good 45 minutes before I could buy tickets to enter. The entrance fee ain’t cheap too but with the Barca Card, I got a small discount off the original price. The inside of the church is magnificent, with a myriad of bright colours juxtaposing against the white marble background. There were plenty of visitors but somehow this gigantic structure still had plenty space for visitors to walk around. One of the interesting monuments in there is a giant slab which contained the Lord’s prayer in various languages and I could find Bahasa in there..haha! There was no time to waste after I’m done with the Basilica. I was tempted to pop in for a buffet lunch at a restaurant opposite but then I realised that I do not have much time left to explore if I spend the time munching on food. As usual, two Hamburgers from McD will do the trick for lunch and I headed straight to find the music museum which is located in Auditori. On the way, I had the opportunity to bump into Barcelona’s bullfighting arena. It looks almost the same as its Madrid counterpart but is now defunct as far as bullfighting is concerned since the sport Is banned in the Catalan region. Anyways, it’s free entrance through the Barca Card for the Museo Musica. Plenty of musical instruments to explore and see and exhibits are arranged according to the individual cultures that they come from. There’s also another section which charts the evolution of music throughout the ages. Not many people were present there because I guess it’s not a popular area to visit unless you’re really into playing musical instruments. Time is ticking, so I hastily made my way to the chocolate museum to ensure that I have ample time to explore it before it closes in the evening. The chocolate museum is another free entrance case and the ‘ticket’ that I received is actually a bar of chocolate! Mhmmm..the chocolate museum is not just a place that exhibits plain old chocolate bars or just mention about the history of cocoa. This little museum houses artistic confectionary masterpieces made entirely from just chocolate! These artisan chefs do not see chocolate only as a delicious source of food, but also as moulding materials like clay. Visitors are treated to a wide array of plain brown chocolate sculptures and also colour painted ones which features well-known characters such as Asterix, Tintin and Bambi. The impressive thing about these sculptures is that they look exactly like the 3D version of their print/screen counterpart. They look almost too good to be eaten..haha. I stayed there until the museum is closing for the day. There’s still some daylight evening time left, so I head off to the docks to find the Columbus Column. This column is located at the end of the La Rambla stretch. The highlight of this place is that one can take an elevator up to the top to have a bird’s eye view of Barcelona city centre from the coast. Entrance is free from the Barca card. There was a short queue to board up the small elevator where only 4 people can go up at a time. The elevator sorta reminded me of the elevator in the Merlion. The space to move around the column at the top of the column is extremely narrow. It has just enough space for a one lane circumference. If one is too fat or is claustrophobic, this place will definitely be a problem. Nevertheless, the view from up there is fantastic. Besides the city centre on one side, I can also have a bird’s eye view of the docks, the World Trade Center and the ships parked near the coast. When I’m satisfied with the pictures taken at the top, I returned back to ground. It was nearing evening, at about 7pm and I was contemplating whether to take the boat ride today or tomorrow. Finally, I decided to take it tomorrow instead as a form of finale to the Spanish voyage. Meanwhile, I walked along the docks and checked out the Barca beach and its seaside attractions. I couldn’t walk the whole coast of course, so at some point of time, I did a u-turn to return back to La Rambla. By then, shops were already closing and I spotted a Carrefour there. So I went in to see to find whether I can get anything to eat and I had a hard time deciding. I bought a raw pizza in the end because I thought that I could bake it in the oven in the hostel. In addition to that, I bought a packet of chips too because it was on promotion. While looking through the shelves, what attracted my attention was bottled Sangria being sold in supermarket shelves. Woahhh, in England, this is like cocktail which can only be obtained in bars but yet in Spain (the country where Sangria originates from), Sangria is just dirt cheap and although it is alcoholic, it is bottled like fruit juice! Carrefour even has its own range of Sangria in box packets. I grabbed one 1.5l bottle and since I have a fridge in the room, I’ll place the bottle in to chill it and drink it for dinner the next day.

On day 3, it’s the moment I’ve been waiting for – it’s time to head off to Nou Camp! I was supposed to start moving in the morning but slackness dragged me on my feet and by the time I reached Nou Camp, it was close to afternoon already. Nou Camp is located on the outskirt of the city centre and it’s literally a Barca sports village by itself. As I was walking to the stadium, I passed by what I believe to be one of the facilities used by the legendary Barca academy to train their young kids. Once I reached the main compound of the stadium, I went straight to queue up for the tickets. There were loads of people snaking to go into the stadium, even more than the Bernebeu I would say. If you thought that Bernebeu’s 16 Euros was expensive, wait till you hear Barca’s entry price of over 20 Euros. Since I had Barca card, I managed to get a small discount. Ughhh..expensive, but it’s a once in a lifetime experience. After getting my ticket, I joined the long snake by going up the escalator and crossing the overhead bridge which brings me directly into the stadium museum. Like the Bernebeu, this stadium tour is self-service. Visitors can also get a free audio guide to accompany them during the museum visitation. Since the museum extremely crowded, I just had a look at the exhibits and let the audio guide do all the talking. At the end of the museum trail, visitors can enter into the main stadium arena with the playing field where the magnificent ‘Mes Que Un Club’ slogan laid majestically among the seats across the other side. Bernebeu feels squarish and high but Nou Camp is more on the rounded side with a lower and its seating arrangement spreads out.

I took my time to savour the view from my place and at the same time, tried to scout for any appropriate candidates among the other tourists to help me to take a photo of me with the stadium. It was quite a chore to cycle a few bunch of people before I managed to get a satisfactory shot of myself with the stadium. I continued to follow the route of the stadium which also leads to the area of the press box where the TV commentators sit. I was keeping track of the time very closely and I try since I had a few other destinations in mind to complete. After feeling satisfied with Nou Camp, I made my way to another sporting venue – the Barcelona Olympics Museum. Since Barca hosted the Olympics in 1992, the Olympic Stadium would still would have been there. The Olympic Village (where the museum is located) is located at the top of a hill and I had to take a special FGC funicular tram to reach the top. This special FGC funicular tram looks exactly like the Penang Hill trams, only more modern. The ride did not take long and from the summit station, I had to walk around 5-10 minutes to reach the museum. The Olympic Museum had various exhibits on the origins of different sporting events. I did not stay long to read the long narratives, so I just skimmed through the areas which are interesting enough for me to explore because of the time. The quick browse of the Olympic Museum was over quickly and I’m off to have a look at the Barcelona Olympic Stadium. Hmmmmm..it still looks well-maintained despite it being mostly devoid of any activity apart from the tourists. My next area of exploration was kinda discovered by accident. Nearby to the Olympic Village was the Castell de Montjuic which was actually a 17^th century military fortification overlooking the Barca coast. As this castle is located on the highest point of the hill, visitors can basically have a bird’s eye view over the whole of Barcelona city centre. It offers an even wider view compared to the Columbus Column. The only setback is that there’s lots of smog permeating the air, and as a result, the camera couldn’t capture a good overview of it. Climbing up and down the various spots in Montjuic is very physically demanding and tiring and by the time I reached the base of the hill, I was brimming with exhaustion. There was still one last thing for me to complete and I’ve just arrived in time before it is closed for the day. It’s the free boat ride along the coast of Barcelona courtesy of the Barca card! It’s an old ferry but the ride was very relaxing. It went past the cargo bay area before making a u-turn back to the docks. Along the way, the little old ferry passed by the gigantic cruise ships too. I think it’s a fitting finale for my time in Barca – to end it off with a boat ride in the evening. For my last dinner, I just grabbed some pasta from the frozen section in the supermarket and reheat them using the hostel’s microwave. To top up my meal, I also have a bottle of ice-cold bottled Sangria which I’ve placed inside the fridge the night before. Ahhh, looks like I’ll drink myself drunk and just fall asleep on the bed. Mhmm, I remember feeling very sleepy at half a bottle and then I dozed off.

My flight back to Leeds is scheduled to be at 12.45pm on 13^th July. I’m not going anywhere on the last day and the morning shall be reserved solely in getting ready for the flight and making sure that I don’t leave any valuables behind. I woke up considerably early and started packing up and took my time to wash up. My time estimations were all spot on and I was at the airport way before time. 3hrs on, I’m safely seated back in my base of operation at Leeds. Well, that concludes the first half of my European voyage. Right now, I’ll take a nice break first from all the travelling and look forward to Mama’s arrival and graduation!

Viva La Madrid!

I had been trying to piece together a trip to at least one of my targeted destinations in Europe before the arrival of Mama and graduation. Now, I definitely do not want to be caught in a situation where I ended up travelling alone to these places. I dread thinking of the fact that I may end up getting lost alone in Europe. It’s always better to have a 2^nd person since that would mean accommodation would be cheaper and taking photos would not be such a hassle. Leo joked that I should do a ‘Carrie’, in reference to our mutual female friend who had travelled around England and Europe by herself. Ahhhhh,,I’m trying very hard not to go down that road!

After much deliberation and checking, I decided to make Spain – Madrid and Barcelona as the destinations to go to during this early July period. I did a couple of flight checks to get the best pricing and in the end, the cheapest combo that I could come up with was to start off with Madrid first using Easyjet from Manchester, followed by a connecting flight in midweek via Spanair to Barca and returning back to Leeds from Barca via Ryanair. With that settled already, I went around, asking in desperation for people to join me. The response was not very good though, as people were either not free, going with parents to the destinations I am going or have gone back to Malaysia. In the end, I got quite fed up asking people or waiting for their replies. I made the final decision, albeit reluctantly, to go ahead with my plans alone and to book the necessary accomodations.

The flight from Manchester was in the evening on 6^th July and when I reached Madrid, it was already 10pm+ or so. When I walked out of the plane onto the Madrid runway to take the transit bus to the terminal, I could feel the Spanish warm air. Ahhhh, it looks like somewhere in Europe, there’s a place where there is tropical Malaysian weather! Naturally I was delighted because I could get rid of the Northern European cold for once. The hostel that I booked is in the region of Barajas, which is where the airport is located. I decided to stay near the airport since my Spanair flight is early in the morning at 7.30am. The area where my hostel is located looked a lot like some small town in Mexico..lol. I think that’s how the Spanish influence the Mexican in terms of town planning. I was quite surprised to find a Chinese provision shop near my hostel too. Hmmm..seems that the Chinese are everywhere! I managed to find my hostel without much problems and my room is actually located in a separate building from the reception office. I was quite surprised at the size and nature of the room though because it felt like a hotel room and the toilet inside the room was quite nicely decorated with marble tiles. There was air-con and Spanish cable TV, so I ain’t complaining much about it. The only left to do is to get a good night’s rest and prepare to explore Madrid the next day.

On the next morning, I headed straight to the train station to purchase the Madrid transport pass which enables me to have unlimited travelling on buses and trains for 3 days straight. The first destination that I had on my card was to head towards Puerto del Sol, which is the main square for Madrid. I was supposed to be there early for the free tour but because of my lateness, I had to go for the free tour in the evening. So, with plenty of time for me to burn, I did a short exploration around the central square before heading to one bakery stall to get some food. I got myself a jamon, which is someone like a raw cured bacon ham in a croissant and it costs only 1 Euros! I topped it up with some juice from the supermarket and that was good enough. After the small lunch, I decided to head off first to check out the Chamberi Train Station, which is one of the ghost train stations in Madrid. One of the reasons why I started from there is because it’s free too..lol. Chamberi is a train station that’s abandoned for decades and has just recently been reopened as a small museum. It’s interesting to see the retro ticket barriers still in place and some of the painted rail map is still in existence. I head back to Plaza Mayor to join up with the free tour group. As usual, we had a basic run through around some of Madrid’s main attractions. That gave me some idea on where to go and what to plan for the next few days. As you can see, I’m pretty impromptu coming into Madrid with not much expectation or plans on where to visit except for the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

For the 2^nd day, I decided to start off the day by heading to bullfighting ring at Plaza de Toros. Bullfighting is a controversial sport but it is part of the Spanish cultural heritage. There are occasional bullfighting matches in Madrid but it is totally banned in Barcelona. So, if I wanna have a chance to see how the inside of a bullfighting arena looks like, this is the best opportunity. I went to have a look at the museum first which is free and it exhibits a lot items related to the gory sport. There are bull heads, matador costumes (including one which still has blood-soaked stains), weapons and portraits of famous matadors. After feeling satisfied exploring the museum, I headed out to the main gate and purchased ticket for the tour. It was very much like a stadium tour as the guide brought us around the arena. He had to speak twice though, once in Spanish and another time in English. The waiting areas around the arena are somewhat like a football stadium, they do sell snacks and drinks. We did go down all the way to where the bullfighting takes place and it’s nothing but sand and dust. After bullfighting business, I went to check out the Vincenzo Calderon Stadium, which is Athletico Madrid’s stadium. From the distance, it looks rather huge and impressive. I tried to search for a main reception area (like Anfield or Old Trafford) but found none. It seems that outside the stadium is quite plain. The interesting thing about the stadium though is that it has an active road traffic running under the stands. Athletico certainly has a bigger and modern stadium than Anfield and I wonder what Torres thought when he first transferred over..haha. I didn’t have lunch or anything yet, so I went to search for El Tigre bar which I read on the Internet serves free tapas for any drink that you buy. It took me quite some time to search for it because it was hidden in a small alley. I came at the right time around 4pm-ish where the crowd is the least. I ordered cider, thinking that they will give me the typical English cider. Instead, they gave me somewhat like a dark red Spanish cider cocktail with peppermint leaves. It tasted quite good and refreshing actually, especially under the hot blazing cloudless Spanish sun. I was given free tapas as expected and it’s quite a generous portion of paella and meat. My drink cost 5 Euros, and I suspected that I may be overcharged as a tourist but I still think it’s worth it if I were to put the meaty tapas into consideration. In the evening, I went to the Madrid Maritime Museum. It was listed as free on the web, but when I went there, I was requested by the guard to make a ‘donation’ of 3 Euros. Ahhh, I paid up anyways since I’m curious to see the artefacts of the Spanish as a former seafaring colonial power. They would have some remnants about Isabella being pwned by Elizabeth during the Golden Age..lol. I stayed until the museum closes. My free tour guide told my group the day before that Madrid has the largest collection of art pieces in a city. It would be a waste if I don’t visit at least one. Apparently, some of these world famous museums do offer free entrance at a particular time. I picked Museo del Prado as it has free entrance from 5pm-6pm and it fits in just nice with my schedule. Inside Museo del Prado, there’s hundreds of Biblical themed paintings. With such a short span of time, obviously I can’t finish seeing everything but it’s good enough to have a glance for a free entrance. I waited for quite some time for the sky to get dark. It’s the peak summer period and even at 9pm, the sky is still bright. Finally, when nightfall did settle in at around 9.30pm-10pm, I walked around the city centre area to enjoy the night lights of Madrid. I went to the Bernebeu for a quick preview and to check out to see whether the stadium is litted up at night. To my dismay, the stadium was pitch-black but outside the stadium were some “pasar malam-ish” food stalls. Oh well, looks like I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get the full view of the stadium.

For the last day, I took the train down straight to the Bernebeu station. The Bernabeu is a massive complex situated in the middle of Madrid’s high end commercial hub. Most stadiums are located in the outskirt but Real Madrid’s stadium is right smack in the city. I proceeded to a long queue to buy the stadium tour ticket and it costs 16 Euros. Unlike the stadium tours in England, visitors to the Bernabeu are allowed the freedom to explore the stadium on their own and stay however long they wish. So, it’s not only the museum that visitors can have the leisure of wandering around, but also the spectator stands, commentator box and dressing room. There are barriers to guide visitors to walk the correct path in this self-guided tour. The first point that visitors came across is the highest point of the spectator stand in the Bernabeu stadium. That point of height is at least 9 to 10 storeys high. Afterthat I went through the museums and the trophy display room. The Champions League sections reminds us that the last time Real had won the CL is in 2002. At ground level, visitors have the opportunity to get a feel of the seats at the substitutes’ bench and of course, Mourinho’s seat. It was there that I got to know for a short time a Bulgarian who strangely had a fancy for Celtic. It was towards the last part of the tour, so he helped me to take photos for the last stretch. After Bernabeu, I went back to the town center for lunch. Once my stomach is filled, I decided to backtrack to some of the places that I came across during the free tour. I came across the Royal Palace but I declined to go in because the price is quite expensive. Instead, I entered inside the Almudena Cathedral, which I thought was a very unique structure. It does seem weird to have a cathedral with an Arabic sounding name but I guess it’s due to the Moorish influence in the past. The interior Almudena is quite impressive while it’s exterior is a reminiscence of Moorish architecture.

My last stop in Madrid is the Buen Retiro Park which is the largest green space available in the city. It houses the monument to King Alfonso XII. Looks like there are plenty of activities to do there. There’s a huge lake in there too where folks can ride a boat around. The most interesting structure that I came across was the Crystal Palace The entire structure was built somewhere in the 19^th century and consisted predominantly of glass. With that, I closed the chapter on Madrid and prepared to go back to my room early to get sufficient rest before waking up early for my flight. My overall conclusion for Madrid: clean, excellent rail service and it certainly did not look like the capital city of a country in debt. I was quite fortunate to have supermarkets selling 1.5l of orange juice for 1.38 Euros and Museo Jamon to sell those cheap 1 Euro croissants. That saved a lot in the food department. Ahhhh, the next stop will be in the Catalan region and I’ll be interested to see how they would differ from the capital city.

I AMsterdam

It’s time to kickstart my European summer travel plans and the first destination on the list is Amsterdam! I’ve arranged myself to go with a group consisting of Carl, Hannah, Carolyn and Wai Yi. The planned period was from 22nd June till 26th June and we were supposed to take Jet 2 down from Leeds to Amsterdam on the morning of 22nd. Due to some miscommunication (me not reachable because of phone problems), WY did not purchase my tickets since she could not get confirmation from me. I tried to get the same flight on the net but just within the time period of 24hrs, the price had risen way beyond the 9.99 pounds to some ridiculously priced 40-50 pounds. The only 9.99 pounds ticket was the evening before on the 21st. I figured out that I should take a chance with that instead of paying unnecessarily. This leads to two options of either going to downtown Amsterdam to stay for a night a hostel or to sleep overnight at the Schiphol airport. Once again, financial considerations had led me to pick sleeping at the airport but I’m confident that it’s not going to be a bad experience. The key is not to leave the transit area of the airport. I did some research on the net about sleeping at Schiphol airport and the reviews weren’t too bad. I had personal experience at Schiphol’s transit area from my transit time at the airport in September last year and I would say its facilities are top class.

So, on the 21st, I made my way down alone to Leeds airport to take the flight. I arrived at Amsterdam around 6.30pm local time. With so much time to kill, I decided to go around to look for dinner (other than McD) that won’t blow up my pocket. My search was not too successful because in the end I still ended up eating Dutch McD because the other food areas were just too expensive. After eating, I went around to find a suitable place to sleep. I was thinking of the chairs near some bistro which I had seen but the characteristics of those chair would not allow me to lie down. The other one was the lounge area with some comfortable sofas/bean bags but the problem is that it may get pretty congested later in the night and there won’t be any privacy. Somehow I bumped onto a section know as “comfort chairs” (lol) and they are perfect! These chairs are reclined with a leather padding overlooking the runway. The section that I went to was not really populated by lots of people. I spent the rest of the night there with my newly acquired netbook and used part of the free 1 hr internet to log onto FB. The 8hrs of sleep was great as I was the only one in the area and I woke up being greeted by the sunrise at the runway. Voila! One night of accommodation saved!

In the morning, my area became rather congested though because flights are coming in. It was time to shift myself to McD since I’ve told WY that I’ll meet them there. I bought myself a McKroket for breakfast which I was feeling rather curious to try. McKroket is only available in the Netherland. After munching on the burger, I have no idea what filling the patty was, other than the feeling that it tasted like mashed potato fried in breadcrumbs. WY and the rest soon arrived and after breakfast, we checked out of immigration without much problems. The first thing to do now is to take a train down to the city center and look for our hostel. One of the first interesting sights that I saw at the train station was the double-decker train which we took to downtown.

It did not take long for us to find the hostel but we could not check-in because we were there too early. We left our bags at the counter first for them to store and then off we went to the main square to catch the free tour. Just like the one in Paris, the free tour gave us a rough idea on where to and what to expect around Amsterdam. We went back to the hostel to check-in after the tour. The room is quite cramped for 5 people. Basically it has 2 double decker beds and one single bed thrown into the middle. I took the middle bed..haha. It was stated that Wi-Fi is charged but we were able to access it without the password anyways, so charge attempt fail. In the evening, we went to pay a visit to Anne Frank’s house, which is now a museum. It was a long queue to get in and to make matters worst, it was raining with strong winds. My pathetic 1 pound umbrella got destroyed in the process and I had to get drenched with my jacket on. We managed to gain entry eventually. Since the museum does not allow camera, I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the interior. Anyways, the layout inside the house is very simple, most of the original furniture had been removed except for a few. The secret attic chamber is still there. Since there were so much of visitors in the house, it gets rather cramped and very often a long stretch of queue forms as we navigate through the narrow corridors of the house. At some sections, we can’t stop the read because the narrow corridor would mean that we would have to continue moving so as not to hold up the people behind. At the end of the museum trail is a small exhibition on the Holocaust in general. We went back to the hostel pretty early at around 8pm also after getting our dinner.

On the next day, we took a bus down to the outskirts of Amsterdam to have a look at one area with lots of windmills. The windmill is one of the trademark symbols of the Netherlands but it’s not the only thing that is found there. There’s a cheese shop which makes traditional Dutch cheese and also a Dutch clog factory. We did a small walk around the area, filled with streams and rivers before proceeding on to the clog factory. I had the opportunity to watch how a clog was made from a block of timber. After feeling satisfied going around, we took a bus back to the city centre. The group decided to rent bicycles to go around Amsterdam instead of taking the public transport. I was a little apprehensive but decided to give it a try since one of the Amsterdam experience is to try riding a bike around the cities like the locals. You see, the problem with Stan is that most of his cycling days are in a park. I have no problem riding a bike, but add cars zooming beside you and other impatient cyclists along a narrow strip of pathway sound alot like a recipe for disaster. Anyways, we cycled to a nearby park so that Carolyn can have a crash course on biking. That took quite some time and when we were done, we cycled back to city centre to park our bikes somewhere before heading off to search for food. Mhmmm..food choices are a little bit hard because everywhere seems to be expensive but we settled to eat at one Italian bistro in the end.

We started off the 3^rd day by checking out the wet market. It was literally wet because the morning weather was gloomy and it was drizzling all over the place. There ain’t much to see because tulip season is over and most of the stuff that are being sold were gardening materials. We proceeded next on our bikes to the Heineken factory. This was the original brewery which was first established in Amsterdam. Hmmmm..I never knew Heineken was Dutch..lol. The museum was quite interesting as it provides some information regarding its origins. There’s also demonstrations on how beer is created. The room with the giant boilers were preserved for visitors to see and those metallic containers are huge! We get to sample Heineken straight from the tap too. At the end of it, we were given two complimentary pints. We redeemed one only though because drinking 2 during an afternoon may be a little too much. Besides, there is a risk that we may be too drunk to ride a bike too..haha. I got myself an interesting souvenir – a Heineken bottle of beer personalised with my own name on it. It’s only 5 Euros and the only setback is that I need to pay another 5 to transport it across back to England. We returned our bikes to the rental shop at around late afternoon and at that time, I was feeling relieved to be able to walk on two legs instead of man-handling the bike in congested Amsterdam. Nevertheless, I have to say that cycling in Amsterdam itself is quite an interesting experience. We spent the remaining evening just exploring Amsterdam on foot. The red light district was an ubiquitous feature and we were warned not to take pictures of the booths because they don’t like tourists doing that. Other than the red light district, there are numerous shops selling everything related to love-making – condoms, DVDs, live shows. Weed of course is another prevalent substance distributed throughout the city and they can be easily obtained from the 200 over “coffeeshops” spread all over Amsterdam. Some of these coffeeshops don’t only sell weed-smoking services but also various other cakes laced with weed (which they call space cakes) and some weird nonsense known as magic mushrooms.

On the final day, we did a short visit of the city’s Heineken souvenir stall before heading off to the airport to catch a flight back to Manchester. Ahhhhh, Amsterdam has certainly been fun and eye-opening at the same time.

P.S. While I was in Amsterdam, I received rumours and congratulations at Facebook for my exam results. You see, the provisional exam results are to be out while we were holidaying in Amsterdam. While hundreds of law students are eagerly checking their results, WY and I are two law students who are still lepaking in Amsterdam, having no idea or confirmation of our results other than rumours from friends. Now, I didn’t want to get excited over anything while I was in Amsterdam and I shut out any news on the results from others because I really wanna enjoy myself without thinking about exam results. The confirmation of classification will be finalised on 1^st of July. Till then, I ain’t gonna speak anything about it!