Monday, 18 February 2008
hello, all. i have finally returned from my roughly 2 weeek trip to spain and france. i bet you guys are wondering how my trip was, so i shall attempt to recall what i did every day of it. however, it will not be totally accurate because i'm writing from memory. can't remember everything, ya know.
Day 1.
KLIA-CDG (Paris) transit to Barcelona.
i was in friggin transit for almost 6 hours. Charles de Gaulle airport is a very cold airport. i guess they're trying to save electricity. it was so cold in there. we went to mcdonald's, hoping for a nice hot breakfast. but stupid mcdnalds only had some cold stuff.
ok just gonna digress a little lol cuz i just watched nine in the afternoon by panic at the disco. the video, i mean. it's pretty good! brendon's rolling around on the floor. haha, that's so bbritney spears. but this is better, especially since they actually seem like they're having a good time. it's a sincere video. and brendon is still cute. :D here's a link.
hanyways.back to the subject. then we flew to barcelona. check in at le meridien hotel. it's really pretty there. i mean barcelona, not the hotel itself. well the hotel is nice too. ugh. they've got nice balconies everywhere, (thought they aren't really big enough to fit more than one person in) and the architecture is amazing. my dad wanted to eat paella (pronounced pah-ay-ah), whihc is a typical spanish rice dish cooked with seafood. however, the concierge at the hotel told us not to eat it because that day happened to be a sunday and because the seafood was caught and brought in on tuesdays, it would not be too fresh. i can't really remember what we did for the rest of the day...
day 2.
i think we went to see the sagrada familia, which is a cathedral that is still incomplete. it's still under construction and it's been under construction since the late 19th century. it was the dream of the architect (and later project director) antoni gaudi. he was rather eccentric with his designs, and the buildings he designed were not the typical neoclassical buildings you see nearly everywhere in barcelona. they were.. unique. extremely unique. he dedicated his whole life to architecture, but he was not very practical. he cared so little for how he looked that when he walked on the streets people thought he was a pauper and brought him to a pauper house, or a homeless shelter. we went all the way up to two of the tallest towers which was really high and really windy and cold, and because we couldn't take the elevator back down anymore, we had to walk all the way down. on a spiral staircase. my sisters and mother were being vain and kept taking pictures and i couldn't stand the wind anymore, so i descended on my own. my dad already went down i think. in the beginning it was ok, because on both sides of the stairs were walls and some windows. the staircase was against the walls of the circular tower. and then while going down, i came to a point where it was a narrow staircase with a railing against the wall but not at the place where i think it was more necessary. looking down in the middle of the spiral was a deep fall. i was so. scared. every now and then there was a small "landing" but kind of to the side. i wanted to stop there and just sit down until somebody came to rescue me, but i was too scared to stop. my legs were quivering like crazy and my foot was starting to hurt. i almost cried. it probably took only 8 minutes but it felt like forever.
later that night, we went for a flamenco show. it was really good. i never know how much passion was involved. the dancers and musicians were mainly hispanic looking people, and i mean darker than white people and dark hair. then there was this ONE white guy singing. really white looking and taller than the rest of them. he looked rather out of place.yeah. it was cool. there was this one part where the dancer looked like he was having a seizure because he was going so fast.
day 3.
i think we took this thing called turistic bus, or tourist bus. it's a double decker tourist bus with audioguides. so we all sat on the top deck despite the cold. i think we went to the olympic stadium.
i'm bored of posting about this. maybe some other time.
now. ohohoh i went to paris and bought a puzzle. a really cool puzzle. hey year 9s, do you remember back in year 8 in our history textbook there was a painting of napoleon coronating josephine with his mother sitting in the background looking, as mr thiru put it, "haughty"? that's the one! i bought that puzzle at the louvre museum. and apparently the real coronation didn't look like that at all. napoleon's mother had actually refused to attent the coronation ceremony. we were actually considering whether to buy that one or the mona lisa, because buying the mona lisa is more of a souvenir and everyone knows it. but the thing is, it's boring to do that puzzle. it's all dark and we'll never be able to figure out which piece goes where. the napoleon one is more itneresting. :)
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