Thanks for taking the time to blog :) You know how much your blogs make me smile. At first glance I thought the necklace were made from peas! hehe! The photos of Yallingup are beautiful and you're very lucky to spot the dolphin. I think it adds to the magical moment to witness something alone. It's like your little private secret.
Yesterday marked one year in London. Amazing huh? So many things have happened and it is the strangest the way things have turned out. The work, the friends, the life, the houses, the places, the sights, the travels, the ups, the downs, the adventures..the MEN! I spend a lot of time pondering over this when I am sweating it out in the gym. As of this month, internet dating is over. My membership expires mid May and I have no interest in renewing it. But I am sure there will still be some stories though...
Fingers crossed I may be in KL in August. I haven't told my parents anything yet. Maybe because I don't want to get their hopes high that I'm moving back closer to home. Strange how I'm quite happy to announce it to the world yet keep it unknown to them. It's the way I roll!
Last night was Sanda's birthday. The best thing about having a party in the house is that you can walk upstairs and straight into bed! There was so much Romanian food and I was pretty much eating and drinking and blasted with Romanian disco music. It was the worst weather ever for a bbq but luckily they set up a gazebo in the yard.
Group pic with the birthday girl. Cake must've been too heavy for smiling lol. Baby Sebby takes all the attention!
Cute Sebby!
Pene's turn! There was plenty of wanting babies talk going between us.
The detox drink not. Pretending to like the mojito that one of the guests prepared haha! Blended up mint is not a good idea!
Those hand rolled minced sausages were yum!
Our makeshift bbq in the backyard. This is how they do it in London/Romania. Umbrella for the rain, chair to the right and bbq levelled at chair height. Note the coat. It was FREEZING outside. If you know me, I was actually just posing for the photo. I spent about 2 minutes here only because the man in charge was on a toilet break lol!
I just went through our Spain pics again just so I can see your cheeky smile! I think we agreed not to publish the collection of our pillow fight in Ibiza but looking at these again, how could we not?!
Whoa we're in IBIZA!
Whoa! We're pillow fighting!
Oh boy!!! I'm very excited where I'll be next and fingers crossed we can share more madness abroad!Have a good week and please pray for sunny weather for my sanity :)
Today Chia and I spent our last day seeing and doing things that we needed to do before we left.
Casa Batllo
Another one of Antoni Gaudi's work, and one which both Chia and I really really liked. We both thought that it was like a dream, psychedelic and 'Alice in Wonderland' like. The amazing things to note were that there were no straight lines in the architecture of the building, the walls, ceiling, windows and colours were design in a way to maximize light and temperature.
The walls are painted to replicate the scales of a fish, the internal skylight room is painted in blue, starting with light blue at the bottom of the house, and gradually getting darker at the top of the house, because the light is brighter up on the top.
The walls and doors have vents sliced through them, appearing like fish gills, but allows air to move between rooms and allow the passage of light. It's just such a crazy, practical house.
This fireplace is shaped like a mushroom, and to the side of it (behind me, and on the left side) there are benches for people to sit on!
Our last dinner
Chia and I made sure that we had an awesome last dinner together. We wanted to savor the moments, including this quirky thing that we found to be common in the Spanish accommodation that we have stayed in:
We ate at a place called Les Quinze Nits in La Placa Reial, which was suggested by Joce and Ed. They warned us that there would be a line, and when Chia and I went there the day before, we couldn't get in. So tonight, we went as early as 6.30pm, and got a seat with no wait. However, as soon as we sat, the line grew and grew.
The food was good, and pretty cheap. We ended up spending approximately €38 for an entree, appetizer and two mains.
Being super hungry and drinking 1 litre of sangria results in:
Other stuff
Yesterday, we had a relaxing day, and one of the highlights was going back to Mercat Boqueria to have tapas from:
This was a codfish salad, which was delicious! Chia and I also really loved the chic pea salad.
I really liked the old man. He was super cute. However, Chia preferred our waiter. =P
We also decided to have a bit of desert afterwards, and after seeing Gaudi's houses at Parc Guell, which we thought looked like gingerbread houses, I felt like this little fella:
So, our time in Barcelona has come to an end. I will miss the girly chats with Chia, which have been so inspiring and fun. But I am sure there will be more fun times ahead together!
Today is the last day I will be spending with Anna. After our day of scaling mountains on Tuesday in our flip flops, we decided that yesterday and today we would spend some quality time focusing on each other and relaxing. Anna has taken the relaxing part too seriously and she is of course sleeping as I am blogging.
In our room there is one double bed and a single bed and the last two nights we've been sleeping in the double bed that Anna is currently sleeping on. Now the reason for this is because this bed is right under the direction of the fan and it's cooling and because the other single bed is a fold up bed and the noise it makes when you move on it sounds as if it's going to snap back and sandwich you in the middle. However, we aren't too sure if Diego (the B & B guy) realises this and we think it's a hoot because each time we come back to the room, the extra pillows and sheets put back in place on the single bed. He's such a jolly guy and we wonder if he's being extra nice to us because of this.
Anyway allow me to take you back to what we did on Tuesday. On this day we took a day trip and caught a one hour train ride to Montserrat and a 5 minute cable car ride up to the monastery.
Up up up in the cable car
It was interesting to look at the monastery, but the best part was the funicular ride up and a walk here. The view was breathtaking and lucky for us, it was cloudy so we didn't get burnt and it made the walk enjoyable.
Bouldering it
Living on the edge. You can just make out the little church we walked up to.
View of where we walked up to.
We tried to catch the funicular down again but the line for it cut of right in front of us and we decided to do the 45 minute walk down to the cable car. This is a video taken of us walking down.
We did plenty of random ramblings and it was lovely to be walking at a leisurely pace with no one around us and hearing only our voices whilst absorbing the unique rock formations and landscape all around us. I'm a little sad knowing that I will miss all of this when we part ways.
That night we caught up with Ed and Joce for tapas. I was very impressed that Anna managed to finish her beer! It was HUGE! I don't know how I allowed myself to be conned into ordering one too especially when I couldn't finish mine in Munich.
Drinks & tapas
That's as far as I'm going
Done!!
After that, we walked back home and straight to bed. Boring I know :p. But this holiday for us was about catching up and spending quality time with each other and remembering things.
Last night it was also a quiet night and after our pizza (we were both craving!) and our strong glass of sangria, we ended up having a full on d & m conversation. We managed to catch up on conversations that we've missed for the last couple of years of me not being in Perth. I really value these times and these type of conversations where we can pour our hearts out about our fears, dreams, hopes, past and the future. There is nothing that I would hold back from telling Anna and I'm glad she feels the same way too. It's hard living away from all your friends and this trip is going to be one of those trips that I will forever look back thinking about all the good times I've had and the adventures along the way.
Anna has woken up and it is time for our last dinner :( :( :( I can't believe that tonight is our last dinner together. I might just cry right about now.
Oh! Chia and I have had jammed-packed holiday in Barcelona so far. The interesting things that we have noticed is that the people here are not as good looking as in Valencia! Well, that is my opinion. Barcelona feels very much like every other big city, but I do admit, that the tiny quirky boutique shops, the tiny delis, and patisserie shops that stem off La Ramblas (the main street for tourists) are really really good.
Also, the owner of our B&B (Dieago) is really really nice, and super informative about how to get to places, little insider secrets for quicker routes to take, or where to buy tickets and avoid the huge queues. He is really jolly and laid back. Chia summed it up nicely with 'everything he does is like a joke'. He is awesome.
Sagrada Familia
On Sunday Chia and I got out early to make our way to Sagrada Familia, the famous church that Antoni Gaudi designed and built half way, before being hit by a tram, leaving it unfinished. The queue was super long, but Dieago told us to go to a small bank on the corner across from the church, as it had an ATM which sold the tickets for entry. He was so right! Getting those tickets from the ATM allowed us to skip the long queue, and avoid sun stroke!
I do like my churches, but this one is by far my favorite. Each small and grand aspect of the church has a purpose.
For an example, the church has two beautiful motifs on the front and the back of the church. The way we entered from was with the detailed motif of the passion of the Christ, with scenes from the last supper, to judas' kiss, to the crucifixion etc. This side of the church is positioned so that the sun will light it as it sets. Whereas the other side, is the nativity scene, with the three kings, shepherds, Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus etc, and this is positioned in a way that when the sun rises, it will be lit.
The inside of the church is even more beautiful. Gone are those dark, scary stained glass windows depicting martyrdom and the like. Gone are the scary paintings of the devil. Instead the church is bright, white, fresh, and the spectrum of colours from the windows, gives this church a feel of celebration, as opposed to imposing fear.
The columns are designed in a way to look like tree branches and the ceiling looks like leaves and are designed to allow as much natural light into the church as possible.
And below is the most boring, tired, flat and mundane video (as described by Chia) that you will ever see. (In my defence, I had very little sleep that night).
Park Guell
We then made our way to Park Guell, which was a private residential estate designed by Gaudi, but had been turned into a park for the public. Again, Chia and I were in awe of the wonderful and wacky imagination of this architect and artist. Things just seemed like they came from the world of Alice in Wonderland. The colour, the designs such as stone pot plants, were just out of this world!
After our long and very hot day, we found a nice little place to have tapas and sangria. It really hit the spot!
