Hey you! Haha I didn't have a good sleep last night, I slept far too late (near one in the morning!) and to compound matters, I had a very bad dream. There was a very slow build up to what I assume would have been a terrifying climax, but just when things were beginning to get bad at an exponential rate, I realised it couldn't possibly be real and managed to wake myself up. It was a very peculiar sensation indeed! So I woke up terrified and in a cold sweat. I'd rather not share about what I dreamt about here so ask me about it when I get back! I turned on the lights, got a drink of water and was just falling back to sleep when the television turned itself on! I was unsettled enough as it is, that got me positively spooked. But it was just an unfortunate turn of events, as you'll see. =)
We went downstairs to the cafeteria beside the entrance of our place for breakfast near nine in the morning. Shared a "footlong" ham and cheese baguette with Dad and had a hot chocolate that was pretty average. Nothing special about breakfast so I'll not say too much about it. We were actually on time to meet the Hos at nine fifteen! That's really remarkable actually. But the thing was, they weren't - they came down at nine thirty lol! No worries there though - the Barcelona Bus Turistic that we were going to take leaves every five to ten minutes. And in case you were wondering, yes, it was one of those cheesy open-topped double-decker buses that Singaporeans like to scoff at back home (and I admit I was one of them! D=), but here in Barcelona, where the weather's cool and mild this time of the year, it was actually a pretty good experience! The free earphones they provided were pretty crappy (though I expected that) so I just used my own Sony in-ear monitors and found it to be a vast improvement. ^^
So we took the bus following the red route. It passed lots of interesting places like the ex-Olympic village (Barcelona hosted it in ninety ninety-two), the waterfront (which used to be shabby but has transformed into an upmarket part of Barcelona since then) and a harbour for cruise liners and yachts (reminds me of a place eh friend? ^^). Then we switched to a bus following the blue route and passed a place where there was a must-see monument, so we got off.
It was the La Pedrera, an apartment house that an industrialist (Pere Mila) commissioned a famous Spanish architect (Antonio Gaudi i Cornet) to build just after the beginning of the twentieth century. It was opened as a cultural center in ninety ninety-six. It has a very interesting structure and a lot of it was strongly influenced by Gaudi's interest in integrating aspects of nature into architecture. We visited the roof terrace, the attic, the exhibition apartments at the sixth floor. It was highly informative and I have a slight interest in architecture (or maybe it's just building aesthetics *shrugs*) so I was happily occupied. Took loads of pictures of the different places there as well as the exhibits in the apartments. Walked a seriously good bit too. Facebook! =D
We had lunch in the adjoining building on the ground floor, at a diner called Farggi. I had a pizza al funghi y jamon. The crust was thin and crispy and the fillings were really fresh. It came nicely heated up too, which is always a big plus. I enjoyed it as thoroughly as a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder washes his hands. =P My drink was Minute Maid Pina (pineapple). It was the same as the Minute Maid drinks you find in Singapore - thick and thirst-inducing rather than thirst-quenching. -.-" Nicely sweet though! Mum, Dad, and I shared a triple scoop ice-cream of dark chocolate, macadamia, and cheesecake. Their ice-cream was really smooth and not THAT sweet, which is awesome because that's the main reason I mostly avoid ice-cream - astronomical levels of sweetness!
We got back on the bus after that (you can hop on or off as often as you like depending on how many days you book it for) and continued on our blue way. Soon an outstanding building appeared between two others in the distance and it made everyone on board go "ooh" and "aah". It was the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, and that was where we made our next stop. It is THE must-see monument in Barcelona, not just A must-see! It was the only cathedral that has well and truly impressed me amongst all the different ones I've seen so far in Europe. Indeed, I've not seen another like it! It's been under construction for nearly a century and while it's very impressive now, I can't imagine what it'll be like upon completion. Anyway, it's really modern inside and it's designed by Gaudi as well, so a great many parts of it are inspired by natural elements such as trees and flowers. There's stained glass everywhere too and I had a hard time taking a lot of it, but I snapped again and again and again because there was so much to take! Maybe I'm a nature pathway person, so I'm more inclined to appreciate a work that takes it's cues from nature. Oh and I need to mention this. They've an immense pipe organ too and it started playing while we were in there! I was so in awe of the sound! The very air vibrated when the low notes were hit - no sound system can reproduce sound like that! And when I went around to look at the player, I saw that there was no player. There was just this organ with a screen and lighted buttons all over. Apparently, it seems to work like one of those Yamaha pianos, where there's an electronic device that triggers the hammers to hit the strings except that in this case, it triggers air to be blown into pipes. Pretty highfalutin there eh? =P So we walked and stared and snapped pictures' then walked and stared some more at all the different things there were to see and found that we didn't want to leave! When we finally left, it was with wistful regret that we could not stay longer. I hope the pictures that I took will do the place justice! =)
We hopped on board the blue route bus, changed to the red route bus, and we were soon walking back along Gran Via. Along the way, we stopped by a sorta bar-and-diner thing called Museo de Jamon? There was a waiter from Shanghai there and he'd been in Spain for five years already! So we communicated in mandarin, a lot simpler than fumbling around in Spanish! We all got the set meal for eight and a half euros. It came with an appetiser, a main course, and dessert. I had this fried codfish ball thingy for my appetiser, a frankfurter for my main dish, and ice-cream for my dessert. We shared a bottle of red wine! The fish balls tasted floury and were crispy on the outside. My Mum and Dad said is was very salty though I didn't really think so until I started feeling thirsty soon after starting on it! It made me eat half my salad like that, so I guess it wasn't altogether bad for health! =P the frankfurter was sliced lengthwise into half and had a firm texture and nice flavour to it, especially since the pork taste wasn't too strong. The warm fries that came with it were soft, but tasted nice as well. The ice-cream turned out to be yoghurt with honey and it was very natural and at the same time, healthy tasting. The wine was pretty strong - I realised I was a bit groggy standing up to walk aft two and a half glasses of wine!
Like last night, we watched a little bit of the Barcelona versus Viktoria match before we left. Boys versus men should've been the name of the game! Got to sleep now though, so guess I'll write more tomorrow night. Two more must-sees to go to via the bus tomorrow (and shopping after that! =D)! And oh, I managed to turn of the television's auto turn-on timer, which was set to seven thirty everyday! No more sudden blastings in the morning! (Y) Goodnight you guys! ^^
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