Saturday, August 4, 2007
Mercado, museu, parc
Friday, August 3, 2007
Montserrat
I had heard about Montserrat from Li, who went to Barcelona a month before Indi and I did. For an atheist to go up the mountains to see a basilica, it must be pretty special. And it is.
The staff at the train station kept referring us to other people (total spoken to: 4) but finally we went on the hour-long train ride and the nice cremellera trip up the mountain.
We caught the (supposedly-boys-but-not-all-boys, nothing figurative there) choir singing in the basilica, ate our takeaway sandwiches, then took the cable car on the way down. No time (or money) for the funicular, but that must be pretty nice.
What amazed me is how nice the facilities were. Could the Benedictine monks be behind this? It's probably the work of the Abadia de Montserrat 2025 Foundation, which oversees the operations.
The staff at the train station kept referring us to other people (total spoken to: 4) but finally we went on the hour-long train ride and the nice cremellera trip up the mountain.
We caught the (supposedly-boys-but-not-all-boys, nothing figurative there) choir singing in the basilica, ate our takeaway sandwiches, then took the cable car on the way down. No time (or money) for the funicular, but that must be pretty nice.
What amazed me is how nice the facilities were. Could the Benedictine monks be behind this? It's probably the work of the Abadia de Montserrat 2025 Foundation, which oversees the operations.
The great Gaudi
Although I knew about Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia, I wasn't exactly a fan before this trip. I thought he must be a madman to design such fancy, over the top buildings like that.
So we embarked on a Gaudi pilgrimage without a clue, only to be thoroughly impressed by the man's architectural genius. He was a true visionary, evidenced by his many creations in Barcelona, tourist attractions in their own right.
My favorite was the exhibit at Casa Mila, also known as La Pedrera. For the student price of €4.50, the trip to the roof with the audioguide was a steal.
Again haven't done any color correction, so sorry about the lighting. This goes for all the trip photos--the last time I'm apologizing for imperfection. :)
So we embarked on a Gaudi pilgrimage without a clue, only to be thoroughly impressed by the man's architectural genius. He was a true visionary, evidenced by his many creations in Barcelona, tourist attractions in their own right.
My favorite was the exhibit at Casa Mila, also known as La Pedrera. For the student price of €4.50, the trip to the roof with the audioguide was a steal.
Again haven't done any color correction, so sorry about the lighting. This goes for all the trip photos--the last time I'm apologizing for imperfection. :)
Thursday, August 2, 2007
8 Random Facts About Me
Tagged by my coz Ate Jing. I don't really know what to say!
1.I can dance the contortionist moves of Filipino novelty songs. Am not up-to-date, but I learn quickly.
2. I don't like getting a tan. Colonial mentality could have something to do with it. But you see, when I get darker, my color doesn't come back for a couple of years.
3. I keep my nails short. Keywords: low maintenance.
7. I used to like Westlife. And I am still fond of (take a deep breath) Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue and Atomic Kitten. Walang kokontra!
8. I like acting. I'm not good at memorizing, I'm no good without a script, but all actors are schizo and so am I. Sometimes . Most of the time. Always, actually.
1.I can dance the contortionist moves of Filipino novelty songs. Am not up-to-date, but I learn quickly.
2. I don't like getting a tan. Colonial mentality could have something to do with it. But you see, when I get darker, my color doesn't come back for a couple of years.
3. I keep my nails short. Keywords: low maintenance.
4. All my timepieces are set five minutes ahead. I hate being late!
5. I light a candle for my family in a church in every country I go to. It's not going to bring us any closer, but I pray for their health and safety.
6. Between classical, modern and contemporary art, I still go for classical. So old school that way.
7. I used to like Westlife. And I am still fond of (take a deep breath) Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue and Atomic Kitten. Walang kokontra!
8. I like acting. I'm not good at memorizing, I'm no good without a script, but all actors are schizo and so am I. Sometimes . Most of the time. Always, actually.
Hostel life
Oh my hostel life, every memory kay saya (how happy--I'm adapting a sharon Cuneta song). Well, not exactly.
For €25 or less, you can get a bed with sheets, a locker (for a deposit) and breakfast. Of course, you have to share the room and the toilet/showers, but it's not a big price to pay to be in the heart of the city. We booked our beds through hostelworld.com, which is a good place to start your search if you're on a shoestring budget.
Alberguinn is walking distance from Barcelona Sants station. The place is new, colorful and full of very young travelers. There's airconditioning (essential at the time), wireless internet and two new PCs running on Ubuntu.
We stayed in a mixed 6-bed room, the smallest one in the hostel. Our roommates were a Chinese couple, psych students who came for a conference and bundled this with a trip to other cities in Spain. When I woke up the following morning, I was surprised to see the two other beds occupied by half-naked guys whose nationalities I never found out (possibly French, according to Indi).
The Spanish owners are very fond of the hardworking Filipina cleaner, were extremely helpful and only had good things to say about Filipinos in Barcelona. They made restaurant recommendations (which we followed--that's fodder for another post) and pointed out the places where most of the servers are Pinoy.
The Sunflower Hostel in Berlin is walking distance from Warschauer S+U stations in the eastern part of town. When we arrived, the music was reggae and the girl at reception had dreadlocks but looked like Steffi Graf.
Eight beds this time. Our roommates were two women whose origins I couldn't place, and a teenage French girl and her mom who was always preparing their meals (they seemed to be forever not in speaking terms). The four of them slept early on our first night. The following morning, the two other beds were occupied by half-naked guys who we discovered to be Danes because of they had corny ringtones and we could understand some of their conversations. We guessed they were in Berlin because it's close to Denmark and cheap to drink there--you wouldn't come back to your room between 4 to 6am every day otherwise.
Though a good deal for the variety of food on offer (€3 for breakfast), we took advantage of the cheap prices and bought our morning ration at the zoo. Just kidding. The supermarket outside the zoo, I mean.
There's wireless Internet near reception and pay PCs. The only thing I don't like is that on our part of the floor, there were only two WC/bathrooms and the showers aren't separated from the toilets. Fortunately, I never had to queue.
A Christian hotel in Amsterdam's Red Light District? You better believe it. We didn't realize it at first because it was raining heavily when we arrived, but the following day, we found out that we were just a block away from the women in the windows that Amsterdam is famous for. (That explains the shady characters in the area.) But we felt safe at Shelter City, which is run mostly by American volunteers. We never went past the 2am curfew (or past midnight in any city, for that matter) nor attended any of the hostel events (including game nights and prayer times).
The photo is of De Waag at Nieumarkt, a stone's throw away from the hostel. I don't have any of the Shelter City.
The first night, I felt uneasy because my backpack and some of the clothes in it got wet, and the dorm was cramped compared to Sunflower. We stayed in a 14-bed female dorm and had to move rooms twice because of the bookings. One complaint: the general lack of ventilation inside the hostel. Other than that, it's a very pleasant place. There's Internet for €0,30 per 10 minutes, which sounds like a lot, but it's cheap for Amsterdam, where everything has a price.
The older brother figure who was at reception when we checked out at 6am gave us sandwiches and apple juice in tetra briks for takeaway breakfast. Jacob, who prepared my sandwich, drew a caricature on the napkin (which I guess is himself) with the speech bubble "Jesus saves" and also wrote "God bless". Thoughtful.
For €25 or less, you can get a bed with sheets, a locker (for a deposit) and breakfast. Of course, you have to share the room and the toilet/showers, but it's not a big price to pay to be in the heart of the city. We booked our beds through hostelworld.com, which is a good place to start your search if you're on a shoestring budget.
Alberguinn is walking distance from Barcelona Sants station. The place is new, colorful and full of very young travelers. There's airconditioning (essential at the time), wireless internet and two new PCs running on Ubuntu.We stayed in a mixed 6-bed room, the smallest one in the hostel. Our roommates were a Chinese couple, psych students who came for a conference and bundled this with a trip to other cities in Spain. When I woke up the following morning, I was surprised to see the two other beds occupied by half-naked guys whose nationalities I never found out (possibly French, according to Indi).
The Spanish owners are very fond of the hardworking Filipina cleaner, were extremely helpful and only had good things to say about Filipinos in Barcelona. They made restaurant recommendations (which we followed--that's fodder for another post) and pointed out the places where most of the servers are Pinoy.
The Sunflower Hostel in Berlin is walking distance from Warschauer S+U stations in the eastern part of town. When we arrived, the music was reggae and the girl at reception had dreadlocks but looked like Steffi Graf. Eight beds this time. Our roommates were two women whose origins I couldn't place, and a teenage French girl and her mom who was always preparing their meals (they seemed to be forever not in speaking terms). The four of them slept early on our first night. The following morning, the two other beds were occupied by half-naked guys who we discovered to be Danes because of they had corny ringtones and we could understand some of their conversations. We guessed they were in Berlin because it's close to Denmark and cheap to drink there--you wouldn't come back to your room between 4 to 6am every day otherwise.
Though a good deal for the variety of food on offer (€3 for breakfast), we took advantage of the cheap prices and bought our morning ration at the zoo. Just kidding. The supermarket outside the zoo, I mean.
There's wireless Internet near reception and pay PCs. The only thing I don't like is that on our part of the floor, there were only two WC/bathrooms and the showers aren't separated from the toilets. Fortunately, I never had to queue.
A Christian hotel in Amsterdam's Red Light District? You better believe it. We didn't realize it at first because it was raining heavily when we arrived, but the following day, we found out that we were just a block away from the women in the windows that Amsterdam is famous for. (That explains the shady characters in the area.) But we felt safe at Shelter City, which is run mostly by American volunteers. We never went past the 2am curfew (or past midnight in any city, for that matter) nor attended any of the hostel events (including game nights and prayer times).The photo is of De Waag at Nieumarkt, a stone's throw away from the hostel. I don't have any of the Shelter City.
The first night, I felt uneasy because my backpack and some of the clothes in it got wet, and the dorm was cramped compared to Sunflower. We stayed in a 14-bed female dorm and had to move rooms twice because of the bookings. One complaint: the general lack of ventilation inside the hostel. Other than that, it's a very pleasant place. There's Internet for €0,30 per 10 minutes, which sounds like a lot, but it's cheap for Amsterdam, where everything has a price.
The older brother figure who was at reception when we checked out at 6am gave us sandwiches and apple juice in tetra briks for takeaway breakfast. Jacob, who prepared my sandwich, drew a caricature on the napkin (which I guess is himself) with the speech bubble "Jesus saves" and also wrote "God bless". Thoughtful.
Euroflights
It would not be fair to rate the airline companies based on their inflight magazines, but that's pretty much what I can remember.
Ryanair Pretty uneventful, except that we arrived 25 minutes early. Their slick mag bears no resemblance to image of the Ryanair brand.
easyJet The flights are pleasant, the planes new, BUT check-in is always, always slow (we flew them twice). It is not fun to queue for all destinations, only to have the line changed into a destination not your own. The inflight mag reminds me of Seventeen mini, with a helpful city guide.
transavia Has the funniest sponsorships. The mag is of not much use to non-Dutch speakers.
Sterling The plane is old. The mag was worn-out when I flipped through it. Maybe that's because it's actually a good read.
AAR Århus Small, with gates just steps away from each other.
GIR Girona Looks new. An hour away from Barcelona by bus.
BCN Barcelona Horrendous. Maybe easyJet is to blame. We thought we would miss the flight, but it departed an hour late because of, well, everything.
ORY Paris Orly Except for bumping my forehead into the Orlyval barrier, I have no complaints. easyJet check-in troubles, as usual.
SXF Berlin Schönefeld I don't remember much. Just the giant E and the train station outside the airport.
TXL Berlin Tegel Unique in the most convenient way: the check-out counter is beside the security check, 10 m away from the waiting area and 20m from the gate. Like a mini-CDG that's more of a mall than an airport.
AMS Amsterdam Schiphol Huge. As un-Tegel-like as it gets.
CPH Copenhagen I've always had a soft spot for CPH. Maybe the wooden floors and low ceilings are home-y.
Backpacking with a Hawk school bag for two weeks? Why not? (That's what big shoulder bags compensate for, dear).
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Barcelona landmarks
A Hackney-ed start
hack·ney (hāk'nē)I'm a Hackney girl now. But only in the "borough of London" sense.
n. pl. hack·neys
1. often Hackney A horse of a breed developed in England, having a gait characterized by pronounced flexion of the knee.
2. A trotting horse suited for routine riding or driving; a hack.
3. A coach or carriage for hire.
tr.v. hack·neyed, hack·ney·ing, hack·neys
1. To cause to become banal and trite through overuse.
2. To hire out; let.
adj.
1. Banal; trite.
2. Having been hired.
[Middle English hakenei, probably after Hakenei, Hackney, a borough of London, England, where such horses were raised.]
After scrubbing and emptying my room, I will still be billed a whopping 1974 kr (~P16,543~€265) for cleaning. I don't think I could have done much better though.
Crossing the bridge over the lake for the last time, I noticed how beautiful it is now, a sharp contrast to how it looked when I first arrived. I left chocolates and a note for Kirsten, who saved my life on my second day in Denmark (Rasmus did that on the first). The last people who saw me were three kind Chinese souls. Somehow Someone always send somebody to save me.
With a suitcase marked "HEAVY", I took a train, a plane, the underground and a bus to the residence hall in Hackney. That my back isn't broken is something of a miracle.
Though my new room is the smallest I've had and it's far from the WC and showers, I quite like it. There is a personal ref in the room and I'm right across the common kitchen. The view isn't spectacular--my window faces the goods entrance of Tesco--but at least Tesco's right there! More specifically, I can see from my window three red rubbish bins which many men visit in search of edible and useful things. The last guy I spotted fished out an entire bunch of bananas. Some of them take out whole bags. Talk about recycling.
Changes since I was last here: the notes (paper money) have been updated and smoking indoors has been banned.
And with this I turn over a new leaf. Travel tales and photos tomorrow!
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