Hola...
We're back from the land of tapas, flemenco and too-much-smoking! Yea, the Spainards smoke A LOT, it's extremely common to see men and women having a cigratte on hand, it's ok for them to smoke IN most restaurants. So it's really hard to avoid to breathe in "second hand" smoke :(
Apart from the passive smoking bit, it was a lovely, lovely trip. We were there for a full 2.5 weeks. After attending to work commitments for the first week, we holiday-ed for about 1.5 weeks. We went from Barcelona to Madrid and also took day trips out from both to other smaller cities like Girona, Toledo, Segovia. It was a trip full of arts, history and architecture. Spain is such a diverse country with historic links to the Romans, Muslim, Arabic and Catholics. There was so much so much to see and learn. We are so glad that we decided to do free and easy this holiday. Well, we always prefer free and easy holidays cos of the flexibility (we hate following fixed timetables in packaged tours - stresses us out when we are supposed to relax during a holiday!). But with the 'lil one in the tumms and considering how extremely busy both F and I were the last few weeks before we left, it was really tempting to just sign up for a package and then follow the planned itenary. Lucky we didn't succumb to the convenience, even though it was pretty crazy the few weeks before and we felt so unprepared initially - we were working the two weekends before we flew, booked the accommodation and organised the day trips like a week before and we only started packing at 8pm on the night we were supposed to fly at midnight.
All in all, we preferred Barcelona to Madrid. It was more tourist friendly, more people speak English compared to Madrid and it was so much easier to find food!! The food bit was really really important to me cos of the baby, I needed to eat - more on the food in a separate post, I guess. There is also much more beautiful architecture in Barcelona :)
My favourite view in Barcelona has got to be from outside the National Art Museum of Catalonia. It took some climbing of many many flight of stairs to get up to the building - see the stairs in the last photo above. Apparently, there were escalotors but we only realised it when we reached the top! The climb was really worth it though, the view felt like the reward for doing the "hard work". There was a small setup selling drinks and a busker to entertain. I really love the atmosphere!
This photo doesn't really do the view justice.
I could be there the whole day just people watching :)
Madrid was a bit dull compared to Barcelona, or rather the Catalonia region. The highlight of the Madrid part of the trip has got to be celebrating my b'day there. F was really sweet to make arrangements for us to go watch Michael Buble perform! I kinda felt quite pampered this b'day, I had my closest with me and so many well-wishes from the family and dear friends :) Can't really described how I feel, it was kinda surreal. It's like the last b'day before I become mummy, before I move on to this "next stage". Can't help but wonder how things will change this time next year. Anyways, MB was fantastic live with the band playing. The Spainards were really enthusiastic people - the audience were standing and dancing throughout the performance! :)
Realise I have so much to record down here! Will have to do a couple more posts about this trip, I guess. Now, back to the mountain load of laundry first.