European Wanderings: April 2011

Saturday, April 9, 2011

The last goodbye

I farewelled Heeyul at Malaga airport. I was feeling a bit emotional since the night before, and when he hugged me goodbye, I broke down in tears. I just couldn't stop, even when he had boarded his plane and it had flown off, I was still breaking down sporadically. Funny story: I started crying again at customs, then the cute customs officer signalled to me to not to cry (in a consoling sort of way I suppose). LOLS! Then on the plane I got so dehydrated from all that crying I had to buy a really overpriced tiny bottle of water to replenish myself. When I got to my hostel in London, I slept pretty much immediately at...6 or 7pm.

I didn't plan on doing anything in London other than shop. So I shall upload some photos which I have now gotten from Yang from the beginning of my trip. Ahh the format of this blog is cyclical...

Buckingham Palace

London Eye

The obligatory photo by the iconic London telephone box

indulging in a macaroon Yang brought for me from Paris

St Paul's Cathedral

Posing by Tower Bridge with Yang

Trafalgar Square. GAWD I was so thin back then, oh how I wish to return to that weight T_T

Italian food

Since I made a special entry for Spainish food, I suppose it's only fair that I do one for Italy also since it was equally, if not more responsible for my food baby.

Our first cappucino in Rome was unforgettable. The coffee in Italy really isn't a myth

Mushroom fettacine - the first of many pasta dishes. My birthday noodles

Really random but cool pizza toppings at this takeaway pizza boutique near the Vatican

The best pizza in Rome. The signature dish had an egg in the middle.

The best pizza in Naples

Another good pizzeria, this place had more options for toppings

Florentine food was divine~ bruscetta

crostini misti...that's chicken liver pate

Florentine steak was as good as any Aussie steak I've had

Herbs for all kinds of pasta. I sorely regret forgetting to buy them

Spanish Food

Looking at jamon at La Boqueria market. I bought some for my parents to try. But I don't know why it was all hard like beef jerky when I opened the vacuum pack in Australia - it was soft when I bought it. Maybe because I put it in the fridge?

This is...the Spanish version of Italian bruscetta

Octopus ink paella - an interesting concept, but it tastes no different to your regular paella

Our hostel in Granada organised dinner. That's one big paella! It was the cheapest and best paella I had in Spain

We dined at a Moorish restaurant for a change while in Granada

Leave tappas for Granada - they come FREE with alcohol. Pinchos is more unique to northern Spain. It's like tapas on toothpicks and the system is like yumcha or sushi train where you pay for each toothpick in your plate at the end of the meal. The pinchos at Taverna Basca Irati was delicious and there was so much variety!

Churros - it's like 油条 dipped in a chocolate sauce

yummy sangria

Granada & Alhambra

As I said in the last post, Granada was one of the places that put Spain on the map for me. My mum was watching an SBS doco on the Alhambra and I was mesmorized by its colourful and detailed enchanting beauty that I just had to visit it even if it was quite out of the way.

Stylistically Granada was quite different from Barcelona and other parts of Europe. It was ruled by the Moors for over 700 years and therefore has a strong Islamic influencewhich is apparent in its buildings, food and side streets. Of course Alhambra is the best preserved Islamic building in all of Europe! I was quite disappointed by Alhambra - perhaps it's my mistakened memory, but I thought it was a very colourful place! But actually all the colour emblazened on the walls and ceilings have since faded into nothingness through the passage of time, making the palace not as visually interesting as I thought it was. Also the fact that you walk into a bare room with no furnishings whatsoever stirs little imagination as to what it would have looked like in its heyday. And the Lion Fountain (supposedly the most famous icon of Alhambra - now restored) has been displaced from its original location to an indoor location. We thought it would have been better if they made replicas so tourists get an idea of what they look like. It was not as extravagent, like Versailles, as I expected, so in that regarded I was disappointed.

Ceiling of a dome - looks like a bat's cave, no?

Granada is also the traditional home for the famous Spanish dance, the flamenco. Traditionally, it was danced in the caves that line the hills behind the city of Granada, and accompanied by a wailing, screaming style of singing. We went to see a show that was recommended by our hostel (it was so cheap! the entrance fee was like 3 or 6 euros!!), but the focus was on that wailing and screaming singing, which Heeyul enjoyed because it was alike traditional Korean singing. He wasn't impressed by the dancing at all! He said the dancer he saw in Barcelona was better with stronger and more crisp movements. In Barcelona, there was also partner dancing and the girl adhered to the traditional imagery of a flamenco dancer (ours was a blondie). However I really liked the dance we saw (afterall I had nothing else to compare to) - so 震撼！

Monday, April 4, 2011

Barcelona's Fantasy Gaudi Architecture

Spain was the one place I really wanted to visit in all of Europe. Before the tiny seed about exchange had even been planted in my mind I had been impressed by Spanish food (through watching A Cook's Journey Through Spain) and a documentary on Granada's Alhambra. My trusty travel book, A Dummy's Guide Through Europe, also named the whole of Spain as an underated (read: underappreciated) place in Europe. So of course it was not going to be left off my itinerary.

Barcelona reminded me of a lot of places. Its beach reminded me of those iconic images of California, especially when it also has a super smooth skating path by the sand. The WTO building which stands by the beach took me to Dubai with its futuristic sail shape. Its eerie gothic quarter,was reminiscent of so many places across Europe. Only the buildings designed by Gaudi stands on its own as quintessentially Barcelonian.

Still, the representative building of Barcelona, La Sagrada Familia, also reminded me of many non-Spainsh things. The front facade (the part built when Gaudi was still alive) reminded me of the Flying Dutchman in Pirates of the Carribean - the nobbly bits sticking out of and dribbling down the wall reminded me of the barnacles on Will Turner's dad, or maybe just oldern day ships generally. The luminous modern interior reminded me of the rainforest in Avartar because of the branching columns and the colours added by the stained glass windows. It was such an amazingly beautiful place, I could have stayed there forever taking in all the details.

It was very bright inside, Gaudi made use of light well

Another of Gaudi's masterpieces was Casa Batlló. Some people say those balconies are like skulls, and the window panes on the first floor resemble bones. I didn't get that ominous vibe - it was way too colourful for that - so to me it looked like an underwater masquerade, very The Little Mermaid. Inside I was impressed by how Gaudi used art to perform structural functions - just as he used the branching columns at La Sagrada Familia to negate the need for horizontal beams so that nothing gets in the way of your vision as you admire (just another one of) his architectural masterpieces.

Street view of Casa Batlló

This lightwell at Casa Batlló: the tiles gradually get darker as it nears the sky light. The darker tiles will absorb the stronger light, whereas not so much light would reach the lighter tiles at the bottom. As a result the lightwell will look as if it has the same colour

I believe the shape of this...ceiling serves a structural purpose, in addition to resembling the interior of a dragon/monster

These are chimneys! Possibly the world's most beautiful chimneys

Park Guell was intended as a housing site, but it was commercially unsuccessful. It really is an amazing park, not in the Versaille way, but in the one of a kind, Gaudi way. Now don't go assuming, as I did, that just because this is related to Gaudi and was intended as a housing estate that there will be more Casa Batllós, because no there is only one Casa Batlló. There are only three buildings at Park Guell. The two at the entrance, although very Gaudi on the exterior, are rather uninspiring on the inside. The third is the Gaudi Museum, and may I recommend you spend the €5 entrance fee elsewhere? Yes it is only €5, but it really was not worth the money for such a short tour and for the artistic quality of what was on display. Ironic, isn't it? - buildings not being the highlight of a Gaudi place. But as the name suggests, the park itself was quite awesome.