they say going on holiday helps you to escape reality and take a break from everything for a while. its true. coming back is like living life again, except that this is a life an airticket less glamorous, a life with education and career and social life all surging back towards you with the force of tsunamis, a life which holds a home that i miss but not the people
so i've been away on vacation for 3 weeks, 2.5 to be more exact, and after jetting to at least 3 countries, i'm home.
( i say at least because in my opinion, transits do constitute visits, even though you haven't properly toured the place, but just stepping into the airport and through the glass doors and breathing their air - you have been to this country, but you haven't really been to it. you know what i mean. )
spain was the first country i visited. well okay the 2nd, because we transited at the milan airport before that. you see what i mean?!
spain is amazingly similar to italy. the world of spain is a world worlds apart from our world. its like nearly everyone is goodlooking there, although its different from italy's beauty. italy was full of elegant, fair, delicate, darkly beautiful, almost coutured faces. spain is a land of equally beautiful but less sculpted faces, slightly rougher, somewhat wilder (which is really ironic cuz italy appears more open and spain more conservative), more rugged in a sense. spaniards look like they all grew up in green valleys and fresh air bathing in sunlight. italians look like they grew up in dark gothic mansions with fat-free foods and wine glasses in their hands.
just my luck, when i reached barcelona, the weather was shit. it rained 3 out of 5 days i was there, which is ridiculous in itself because whoever heard of rain in spain?! everyone whose been to spain talks about the fantastic sunshine and the friendliness of the people. i guess weather realy does affect one's mood then. not that the people there weren't nice, most were polite and all but i just expected them to be a little more...welcoming.
i can't really rmb all the fine details (the photos will say alot more) but we walked las ramblas and plaza catalunya on the first day. P.C is this really sweet place with tons of kids and light and ivory pigeons. ivory as in the colour. the pigeons were alive, doofus.
tuesday we headed to montserrat, a very religious place situated in the mountains. spectacular view and all. took a funicular (large cable car) up and walked around, the cathedral is beautiful. as in beautiful. there's a gorgeous little courtyard before you enter the main halls, and its like a tiny section of wonderland. columns of white marble threaded all around, and the floor is marble as well, glinting even brighter due to the remnants of rain. in the middle of the floor lies a gorgous symbol (smth holy but i don't know haha) etched deep, with a myriad of colours, and there's a circle in the middle. where i stood of course to take a pic. i just had to. on the front wall of the courtyard, just before you enter the main cathedral, stained glass and intricate carvings stretch as far up as the eye can see.
every statue has a story, a meaning, an emotion, and there were countless frozen in time right there on that stretch. ok enough already.
and then in barca there was of course the sagrada familia, which probably every architect and artist is familiar with. it looks grand and impressive, albeit somewhat darker than i thought it would be (trust me, its the weather). the architecture is way ahead of its time, and its creator, Gaudi, is thought to be a structural genius. unfortch, he died before it could be finished, so now they're attempting to build the rest as Gaudi would have wanted it. i've heard its scheduled to be complete by 2030. whew!
my dad joked once that the most lucrative industry in europe right now is scaffolding. nearly every major attraction has scaffolding over some part (or even ALL) of it. its like when one section is completed, the other section looks dated in comparison and they have to work on it. and when the other section is done...
etcetc. vicious circle.
onwards! oh we visited Camp Nou! ((((:
barca fans rejoice, because right now i'm about to reveal full watercolour photos of the interior of their glorious stadium, as well as sneak peeks into their dressing room, and even meet and greet sessions with the players!!! i've even got a lock of lionel messi's hair!!!!!
ok sarcasm aside, i did take photos. not of the inside of course. are u crazy!? do you know how much it costs!!?? to go in you have to sign up for a guided tour etcetc. oh but my sister's friend was lucky enough to see ronaldinho. i'm not kidding this time. she attended a barca training session, and while walking out of the training grounds after that, ronaldinho drove out right past her in his car, and paused to smile and wave at the fans through the windscreen.
oh did i mention that my sis watched the brazil ghana match? she got to see ronaldinho, robinho and kaka live in the flesh running around on the pitch below. don't know how near her seats were though. ok kaka fans stop drooling, its ruining the keyboard. and yes that means you my dear hahaha.
where was i? oh yeah i visited the santiago bernabeu as well in madrid. it seemed much bigger than the camp nou stadium (mainly i guess because we walked all the way around it just to find the souvenir store). photos, photos.
ok i'd better finish up the rest of the post another time or my blogger or my comp, whichever first, is going to crash. all photos (there are tons more that i just haven't shown yet) will be linked soon. next up! madrid! bullfighting! stockholm! beautiful people! cruise to finland!
prison break! project sona-
happy 19th birthday yoooks!!!--
