barcelona – day 2 – part 1

okie … the story continues now.

day 2 was another wonderful journey. started with Nou Camp stadium, where FC Barcelona plays its home games. unfortunately, we didnt get the chance to go inside the stadium. but, we did take some pictures outside. one of them is here:

this wasnt the main entrance of the stadium. the background was still nice nonetheless. you can see Puyol’s aura (in case you dont know, he is Barca’s captain), and the youthful energy of bojan and gio do santos.

should you wanna visit the stadium, take L1 and stop at plaça de sants. change to L5 and stop at collblanc. once you’re on the ground again, turn left, go straight, turn left again, and then walk up the hill. the stadium will be on your right side. otherwise, ask local people just say nou camp, and with their gestures you’ll figure out where it is, unless you speak spanish of course.

back down the hill, we were crying out for lunch. we had eventually lunch at a small restaurant. a very cheap one i must admit *compared to others*. and here comes a tip for you. go for lunch in local restaurant around 1 o’clock. they will have special offer, complete from the first and second plate to the dessert.

back to the metro station, we continued our trip to Montjuic. from paral.lel metro station, we took a cable car (Teleféric de Montjuic), which gave us a fantastic panorama of barcelona from the sky. the experience of riding the cable car can be watched here:

we also found one of the best places to take a picture with barcelona as a background, once we stepped out the cable car. look at these pics:

once we got on top of the hill, we were at the Montjuic Castle. i was thinking that the castle might very well be the first defense of the city back to a few centuries ago.

while going up was an easy and fast route (by cable car), going down was a complete different matter. we decided to go down by foot. it took us about 20 – 30 minutes to finally arrive at Palau Nacional. here is the pic taken outside the castle.

once we stopped at Palau Nacional, we were just sitting there for half an hour or so, enjoying a musician amazingly playing his guitar. it was as if we were in a jazz club. the music was incredibly amazing. let alone the view and the warm of the weather.

anyway … that’s for now. day 2 part 2 will follow soon. stay tune

barcelona – day 1 – part 2

day 1 part 2

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soon after we refreshed ourselves up, Barcelona exploration day 1 began. we started by walking up from Plaça de Catalunya, Passeig de Gràcia to Sagrada Família. along the way, we saw some gaudi’s masterpieces. well, we had no problem of doing that as the weather was really nice that day (the sky was blue, the sun was shinning bright, and the temperature was more than 23++ celcious). 

anyway, back to gaudi’s finest pieces of arts, you can find Casa Batlló, Casa Milà (aka La Pedrera), and Sagrada Família in Eixample district. a glimpse of these buildings:

  

as you can see in the pictures, the sky was blue and the sun was shinning. no wonder i fell in love with this city and wanted to move in as soon as i got the chance to do so.  

well … we spent the whole day walked up and down, explored the buildings, and enjoyed the nice mediterannean’s weather. but, … that wasn’t the final yet … there was still one important thing we did, watched football game. the first leg of champion’s league semifinal between barcelona and manchester united.

we watched it at an irish club located only 3 minutes away from our apartment. the atmosphere in that irish club was simply marvelous. there were a lot of barcelona’s and a few mu’s fans. but, mu’s fans continously chanted song after song of their favorite club. too bad cristiano ronaldo missed the penalty. otherwise, the heat would have been so much more between the two groups.

so yea … that was our first day in barcelona. me and arif went back to the apartment around midnight, with still so many people outside enjoying the weather. something that i barely saw in the netherlands

story of our second day will be posted in a few hours from now. so, don’t forget to check out this blog for the latest stories.

barcelona – day 1 – part 1

ola …

yesterday, you read my entry on the preparation before the trip. in a few minutes, you’ll read the story of our first day in barcelona.

our flight was scheduled to depart at 06.35. we thus decided to spend the night at the schiphol airport. so there were we sitting in front of starbucks coffee on the ground floor of departure 3, busy with our stuff, talking about some school stuff - urgh. we kept telling each other not to talk about that anymore, especially because one of us did bring her final dissertation draft with -, and planning our program for day 1.
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time flew and finally we arrived at barcelona el prat aeroport. the flight took about 1.45 minutes. no problem whatsoever during the flight, we arrived even 10 minutes earlier than the schedule. 

we then had coffee on the ground floor *the price was cheaper than the netherlands. a cup of black coffee costed me about 1.15 or 1.30 euros*. after that, we caught the train to go to barcelona sants, the main railway station in barcelona. we got free tickets for that *i did and still do not know the reason*. it took us about 20 minutes to get to the train station and changed to metro to check in at the BCN Loft *see my previous entry*.  i’d recommend that you buy T10 metro tickets *also for bus, train zona 1, and other public transport* for only 7.20 euros (cheaper than the similar version of paris public transport system, 11.something euros). you can use it 10 times.   

so, there were we taking metro L3 and stepped out at Liceu metro station. we apparently stopped at la rambla, and it was crowded. people were selling roses anywhere, from the red ones to the flowers with 7 colors, cool, huh? we were wondering what’s going on that day. why everyone brings flowers? isn’t it kinda strange, is it? look at these pics:

 
well the question was finally answered when we arrived at the hostel office. it turned out that people in barcelona was celebrating valentine’s day that day. we were like, oooo … daarom :p no wonder la rambla was so crowded and packed of people. unfortunately, we couldn’t check in directly as the occupants before us hadn’t returned the key. so we left our stuff in the office and wandered alongside la rambla.

it was then the time for lunch. we were all hungry and wanting to eat tapas. we then opted to eat in one of the restaurants alongside la rambla. we asked for recommendations from the waitress. that in turn costed us 70 euros ( that was a robbery. lesson #1, never do something like that while you are on vacation *at least, decide on your own what you wanna eat*.

 
if you happen to like fresh veggies and fruits, i’d recommend you to visit la boqueria. it is one of the most famous tourist destinations in barcelona, and located in la rambla. it’s just a few minutes away from the Liceu metro station. 

we then bought some groceries at carrefour la rambla. afterward, we headed back to the hostel office. this time, the key had been returned, and we were accompanied to the apartment, which apparently turned out to be the best one they had. the apartment was just 2-3 minutes away from urquinaona (see the image below) metro station.  
 
the apartment apparently located at a strategic place. it was close by Arc de Triomf, Parc Ciutadella, La Rambla, Placa de Catalunya, and more (will be mentioned in the coming posts).  the caretaker’s name was Paula, who originally came from Brazil.

okie … that’s for the first part of our day 1 story in Barcelona. the next part will follow in a few hours from now.    
 

barcelona – introduction

ola …

“como estas? mui bien.” a simple spanish phrase i learned during my stay in barcelona last week. this simple question and answer means “how are you? im fine.” i spent in total 4 days and 3 nights in the city and enjoyed every second of it.

so, in the next 3 or 4 days, i’ll publish my stories on the activities i did day after day in this beautiful city. what im writing now is the story before the holiday began.

the preparation began in march ‘08, when i happened to see an offer from transavia. the airline company was selling free tickets. by that means i only needed to pay for the airport taxs and administrative costs. so i did buy the tickets for three. for each person, it costed roughly 87 euros *which compared to now is almost less than a half - the price is about 150 euros now*.

at the same time, we (me, arif, and jenny) looked for cheap hostel in barcelona. and we found BCN Loft and decided to book room for 4 days and 3 nights. each person only had to pay 75 euros for that. it turned out to be one good decision, as will be mentioned in my next entry. thus, in total we spent 162 euros on tickets and accommodation. that turned out to be a good deal, as you’ll read in the coming 4 days

well, that’s for the introduction. more stories will follow *with some pictures and videos from the city* enjoy your day, wherever you’re now.

barcelona and a question

i again wanna express myself clear. time flies!! im heading to barcelona in three days time. wonderful!!! it seemed just yesterday i hurried my roommate to ask some more people to go with us and to book hostel there. pff … so yea, im really looking forward to this coming holiday. the very first one after going through some horrible experience.

anyway, i’ll for sure write some entry about barcelona as soon as i got back here. but for now, i’d love to jot down my question. a very simple question in response to what happen in our society, wherever you are, whatever your background is .. why do people cheat on their partner?

from my observation, i found out that the length of the two are in relationship, status, race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual affiliation, … (fill in the blank to continue the list) are unlikely to stop people from cheating. so, why does this happen? someone can perhaps enlighten me …

 

heading east …

ive just read two interesting articles that may help fresh graduates to determine where they want to build their future.

first, the article in business week revealing the latest trend in finances world, where money goes from middle east to asia (china, india, south-east asia), instead to west. considering the soaring oil price, weakening U.S. dollar, poor economic forecast in the U.S. and U.K., this trend is worth to consider.

i’ll not tell you more. but, i’ll let you to connect the dots by reading these two articles.

Today, Standard Chartered has a team of 50 scouring the region for deals. And they’re going to get busier, he predicts, as more investors from oil and gas-rich states in the Gulf look to Asia’s giant emerging economies. “This is really the beginning,” says Shankar. “You will see a lot of this happening.” …

further reading: business week

the second article tells us about the gloomy prospect in the U.S. as the fear of recession is increasing day after day.

Not long ago, overtime was a regular feature at the Ludowici Roof Tile factory in eastern Ohio. Not anymore. With orders scarce and crates of unsold tiles piling up across the yard, the company has slowed production and cut working hours, sowing worry and thrift among its workers…

source: the new york times

have a nice reading and enjoy your weekend.