Taste of Spain Part VI, Seville Part I - "Speaking Spanish."

So after arriving in Seville really late after stopping by Granada, Nerja, and Malaga, we just miss the rental car check-in by a few minutes.

Which, I guess, was a blessing in disguise since it would force us to get up early
because we had to return the car first thing in the morning. Getting up early wasn't a bad thing. It would at least give us a head start on sightseeing.

Since we failed to return the car, I decided to try and buy our tickets to Madrid for Wednesday.

Luckily the rental car return was at the train station. I go in, and I noticed the ticket office was closed, so I decide to ask the police officer.

I ask: (And I apologise to Spanish speakers if I butcher your language)

"Necesitamos comparar billetes para Madrid." (My translation: I need to buy tickets for Madrid)

The officer responds:

"adflkajsd aklfjaofi cbjsdfdoi alkdajapio"

And I say:

"Que?"

And then he says slowly:

"asldkfjasldkfjqw cerrado asdfkjaodifu manana adpfui"

I smile and say: "Oh si!" as I nod happily.

Did I understand what he was saying?

Hell no!

The thing with Speaking Spanish to Spanish speakers is that they'll answer back to you, just really really fast to a point where its almost another language!

And then they read it in your face that you have no idea what they just said, so they speak slower.

At that point, you maybe pick up a few key words like I did. "Cerrado" - Closed and "Manana" - tomorrow.

Which if I think about it, he probably said something like:

"It's closed right now, try buying your tickets tomorrow."

Which of course I could have figured out myself.

The other funny thing that dk experienced was this:

dk: "Donde esta 'W' 'C' ?" (WC - is water closet, or restroom)

bartender responds in perfect English:

"Oh its downstairs to your right."

That's the other funny bit. When you are trying to speak Spanish, some people are happy you tried, but they'll answer back in English!

Three phrases used most:

Cervezas por favor? - Beer please.

La Cuenta por favor? - The bill please.

Tapas? - Tapas? (which I will get into later..)

To be continued...

Taste of Spain Part V - "I don't wanna go to the caves..."

So after spending most of the day in Granada, we head off on our roadtrip to Seville.

The plan was to stop by Malaga for dinner to catch the sunset. Except for an unexpected stopover at Nerja!

What is Nerja? I didn't know either.. nor did I care really. But we had to follow
the Frommer's Best Loved Driving Tours and it suggested to stop by the The Balcon de Europa (The Balcony of Europe) and Nerja's "Caves." ("It has gold stars next to them!" - Roy)

The Balcony of Europe is a cliff that juts out to sea and is enclosed by two sheltered beaches, it is a favourite spot of many visitors with a beautiful view of the Mediterranean. I agreed that this would be a nice stopping point.

But the caves? No thanks. I've seen enough caves in my life. In fact I've been to the Meramec Caverns when I was a kid, so its hard to compete with the "largest single cave formation in the world."

so I whined like a little b!tch and complained that I didn't want to go.

(whiny voice)
"I don't wanna go to the caves..."
(whiny voice)

Why?

First, we arrived at 6:15PM and the caves closed at 6:30PM. How can one appreciate rock formations in 15 minutes?

Second, it cost 8 euros to get in to see rocks.

Third, people take buses from Seville to Nerja to see these caves and they spend most of the day appreciating them. (refer to reason one)

Forth, I've seen stalactite formations before, and it doesn't exactly tickle my fancy. Ooo... look at the rock formation.. wow...

Fifth, I wanted to catch the sunset at Malaga.

So basically I'm paying 8 euros to walk through caves I've seen before for 15 minutes. But hey, I'm a team player so I decide to go.

What happens? After the guys taking our ticket curse us in Spanish for showing up 15 min before it closes, we run through the caves in 10 minutes.

At least Roy took this picture:


Beautiful isn't it. Not really. It's not clear because we were running through it and I think he took this picture while we were rushing through it. =)

The Balcony of Europe on the other hand was worth it. Beautiful view of the Mediterranean Sea and the coast.

But after all of it, I'm glad we stopped by Nerja. It produced some funny memories and at least now I know that it doesn't compete with Meramec. At least from what I could tell from the 10 minutes I spent in them. =)

Do we make it to Malaga by Sunset? Kind of. I watched it from the backseat of the car.

To be continued..

Jacket Potato
I had a jacket potato for lunch today. Its basically a baked potato. I had chili, cheese and beans as a topping. What a weird thing to have for lunch. I'm so use to having a baked potato with a juicy fat steak. But having it alone, its just not the same!

Taste of Spain Part IV - Off to Granada to see the Alhambra

Fast forward again to Granada, Spain to visit the Alhambra. After spending the weekend in Barcelona, which included going out Saturday night and yelling "Hola!" in a drunken fashion to high school kids at a bar, we were off to Granada Sunday night.

Yet again, we almost miss our scheduled departure. It took us forever to find a taxi to go to the train station which resulted in a bit of anxiety. Luckily we found one and made the overnight train to Granada with only minutes to spare. The trip would take us 12 hours and we had beds to sleep in. The beds were comfortable but I would wake up and have this feeling of falling off the bed since the train would rock back and forth every time it would stop. This is because the bed was perpendicular to the direction of travel.

After picking up our rental car, (for our drive to Seville later in the day) one of our first destinations was the Mirador de San Nicholas. Trusting the Lonely Planet guide, it suggested to go to the Mirador de San Nicholas which provided the best views of the Alhambra.

Here's a professional picture of how it looked like:





This is my version:


Either way, it was a breaktaking view and is considered the most famous viewpoint in Granada. So famous that I've included yet another video!



After shooting this video, we were so excited that we ran out of the plaza to catch the next bus to the Alhambra. Not out of embarrassment of course, but of true excitement!

The Alhambra was quite beautiful. I had seen a few pictures of it before, just like the picture I took above with the reflecting pool, but to see it in person is an unforgettable experience. We walked around the palace and bought the audio guide which was totally worth it. Otherwise we'd be walking around without any idea of what we were looking at.


We spent most of the day at the Alhambra and concluded the day by visiting Generalife or "Garden of the Architect. The picture on the left gives you a little taste of what it looked like.

After spending most of the day here, we were off to our roadtrip down the southern coast of Spain, hitting a couple cities along the way. Some expected, some not expected!

To be continued.. yet again..

V for Vendetta
I'm a huge Natalie Portman fan. If you've read my blog in the past, I've already educated you on the background you need to watch this movie! I didn't know what to expect going into it, but I did enjoy watching it! I think Natalie's performance was pretty good and almost a "coming of age" role for her. (Considering that her last role I saw her in was in Star Wars Ep. III.) I loved her English accent in the movie, and of course, I loved how it all took place in London! Not a bad movie to see for my first movie experience in London.

Taste of Spain Part III - Its so Gaudi!

Gaudi not Gaudy!

Have you ever heard of Antoni Gaudi? He's a famous Spanish Architect who had a very unique style when it came to architecture. If you ever visit Barcelona, you will have to see some of his works.

After taking a bus tour around Barcelona, (which I may add is useless if you are not sitting on the top of the bus) we were off to see one of Gaudi's masterpieces, La Pedrera.




The is a very unique building and the best part of it is the rooftop. We spend a lot of time up here taking glamour shots because the roof is filled with interesting shapes and objects as you see.

You can imagine running around the rooftop taking all types of fun pictures. And trust me we did! The best part of all of this was that we went up to the roof an hour before sunset which is the best time to take pictures!

To get a better feel of the rooftop I've also included a video! Check it out and I suggest you watch really closely! If you spot something really interesting, leave a comment! (I suggest that you watch it once as it loads and then replay the video after it fully loads) Dave Chappelle fans should know what to look for.



Thanks to dk for shooting the video and roy for obvious reasons!

More hightlights on Spain to come!

Taste of Spain Part II - Barcelona setting the bar.

After being the last 3 people to get on the plane, the airplane door was literally shut seconds after we take our seats.

Fast forward 2 hours. Like any new country, its fun to figure out how to get to your destination from the airport. Fun in the sense of taking public transportation rather than a taxi taking you from point to point.

On our way to our final destination, we meet a local who notices that we are trying to find our way. He introduces himself and proceeds to tell us tidbits about Spain. About how our Spanish from HS will pretty much be useless and informs us that not only is Spanish spoken, but Catalan is also spoken in Spain. We mention food and various tapas and even discuss how Huevos del Toro are prepared. For those not familiar with Spanish, Huevos del Toro directly translates to "Balls of the Bull." Or Bull's testicles. Yummy! How appetizing!

Speaking of appetizing, I was really looking forward to this trip because of the food! Especially the tapas! What better place to have tapas than Spain. This was the country where it all started right?



I mean its like having a Chicago Style Hotdog in Chicago, Italian food in Italy, Guinness in Dublin, Sushi in Japan, or Chinese in Chinatown. =)

I've been to a couple tapas places in Chicago: Iberico, Emilio's, Sangria.. etc.

So how was our first tapas experience in Spain? Amazing. Unforgettable.

Gambas al ajillo, Gambas a la plancha, pulpo a la plancha, patatas bravas, championes a la plancha, empanadas, the list goes on and on. It was so good and the seafood was so fresh. Top that off with some Sangria the meal was perfect.

UNTIL.. Curiosity set in. I introduce to you the culprit: green peppers



It looks harmless. dk was curious as to what it was. Roy suggested that we try it out. If we didn't try it, we would regret it.

My taste buds were so happy until this point. I had suffered from English food long enough and my tapas experience had reached an all time food experience high. Nothing could bring me down from this high.

We ordered this dish and unfortunately, roy and dk picked a few hot peppers that were, well, WAY TOO HOT! I was luckily enough to pick the first three that were quite mild. Feeling confident, I explained my theory on how to choose the "not so hot" peppers.

I felt bad for dk and roy since they had picked "the wrong" ones. So I proceeded to explain my theory and pointed out which one I thought looked like a "REALLY HOT" pepper. Feeling their pain, and being a compassionate friend, I tested my theory.

Sure enough my theory was right.

I choose the hottest pepper I've ever tasted in my whole entire life. My "natural high" of the best tapas I've ever had came crashing down in a matter of seconds. One of the best food experiences I've ever had ended abruptly with one single bite. The joy of food all of a sudden became an agony. All because of one pepper. The spicy, hot taste would not leave my mouth and I was left with tears in my eyes. My taste buds that were once so happy now burned to death due to this damn pepper.

This would then coin the phrase... "crrassshhh landing..." and was used throughout the rest of the trip to capture the moment of a height of happiness to the lows of disappointment.

Despite the pepper, the first tapas experience in Barcelona definitely set the bar as far as my expectations for the rest of the trip. Was the bar set too high?

To be continued..

Taste of Spain Part I - Don't trust sushi on a conveyer belt.

The last time I took an extended trip around Europe, which was around 6 years ago, I went "backpacking." So why not, why not wipe off the dust of my old backpack, conjure up old memories, and use it again for my "Taste of Spain trip." (I call it taste of Spain primarily because we were trying to hit "at least" 4 cities in a week)


Here is a picture of the backpack of choice:





North Face Galileo L4600. Granted, it doesn't look that big, but in person its huge. The L in L4600 stands for "Large." If you pushed me over, I'd be a turtle on its back, struggling to get up. =) Having it on my back for about 2-3 minutes feels fine, but after 8-10 min, it feels worse.

After checking it in the airport it weighed in at 15kg, which is around 33 pounds on my back. Not only that, I carried an extra backpack since I have an obsession with over packing. Little did I know this would lead to my demise.

dk and Roy were arriving at Heathrow, but our plane was leaving Gatwick. I formulated multiple scenarios on how I could meet them
such that we wouldn't miss our flight to Spain. We only had a 3-4 hour window to meet and check in. The best way I found was to meet them at Heathrow and take a charter bus to Gatwick Airport. This would take an hour and a half. Perfect and efficient.

All was going to plan and we were even an hour and a half early before departure.

We make our way to the food court and I wanted to show them a restaurant called Yo Sushi. The idea behind Yo Sushi is that the sushi sits on a conveyer belt that rotates throughout the whole seating area. You basically sit in front of this conveyer belt and grab the dishes you want. Each dish has a different colour that indicates its price range. We sit down, relax, and catch up on the latest news. We're even intrigued by the sushi cooks who all happen to be Filipinas. (They were all speaking in their native tongue and since I understood the language, we were hoping they would talk about us.) Meanwhile, all this time I'm constantly trying to take a peak at the Departure board to figure out what time it is. I was a little worried because it seemed like we were sitting forever.

I was right. After finding out what time it was, our gate was closing!

There's nothing worse than the feeling of running to a gate and thinking in the back of your mind that you may miss your flight. We looked up at the board and the status of our flight had something flashing next to it in RED.. something like, "GATE CLOSING" or "LAST CALL FOR BOARDING." Whatever it was, it wasn't good.

I hate running to a gate. Especially if the gate is so far away. (Luckily I checked in my 15kg backpack) It immediately felt like we were participating in the Amazing Race. dk lead the way while I paid the bill. The hope was that he'd make the gate early enough to tell the attendants that we were trailing behind.

You really know when you are late when they page you over the airport intercom! I heard all three of our names while we were running telling us to report to the gate!What a terrible feeling.

Luckily we made the flight on time. It could have been worse. Luckily I checked in my 15kg backpack... this time.

To be continued...

Updates soon!

*Sigh* Back in gloomy London after a week in Spain.. what a beautiful country and luckily we were blessed with beautiful weather at the same time.

I figure I'm going to blog about the details about the trip over the next week instead of leaving one big blog entry. So stay tuned!

Special thanks to ChicaChan for the kind hospitality and accomodations in Barcelona. And of course, thanks to roy and dk for the good times and great memories! Craassh landing! Sorry the shower didn't work! (its still broken, and have to walk to the other bldg to use one in another flat)

Anyway, it was a nice long, "productive" trip. For my sake and just in case my memory fails me later in life, I will blog about highlights and experiences throughout the week. Enough detail anyway for me to jog my memory when I write my memoirs. ;-)

Espana!

I took 4 years of Spanish in high school. And finally, I can put it to use tomorrow and for a week! I felt so cool when I was first learning Spanish in high school because some of the words in Tagalog, (my native language that I can understand but can speak little of) had some Spanish influence. Like car. Coche. Or Como Esta and Kummusta.. yeah different accents but very similar meaning. The Spaniards ruled the Filipinos for 333 years. That's a bloody long time! I think the best word that is used by both languages that mean the same thing is FIESTA! As Lionel Richie put it best..

Yeah Fiesta forever..Come on and sing my song

All night long..all night.. All night..all night..
All night long..all night.. All night..all night..
All night long..all night.. All night..all night..

So I'm going to go off on a tangent because I googled the lyrics because my favourite bit was JUMBO JUMBO!!

So then I saw this..

Tom bo li de say de moi ya
Yeah, Jambo Jumbo
Way to parti' o we goin'
Oh, jambali
Tom bo li de say de moi ya
Yeah, JUMBO JUMBO!

I LOVE THAT PART.. hahahaha..
What the hell is "Tom bo li de say de moi ya" !!

Get it in your head and sing it all weekend!
JUMBO JUMBO!! LOL.

I hope to blog some updates while we're gone, but if not, see ya in a week!

Gotta love Lionel!

Oh, and probably the most frequent phrase I will use on the trip.
Donde esta el bano?

If you know me, this makes total sense. =)

6 months just like that.

Half a year. Just like that. It was fast. 2 years doesn't seem as long anymore considering I'm a fourth of the way through. Well, 2 years is such a relative number. I can honestly say it may be a bit longer than that. We'll see.

So what's happened in six months?

Travel
I love it. I'm hitting my average of a different European city every month.
So far: Paris, Prague, Dublin, Venice, Amsterdam, and Berlin. It continues the next couple months with Spain next week for a whole week with Barcelona, Granada, Seville, and Madrid. And what better city to spend Easter than Rome! I know for a fact I wouldn't be traveling this much if I was still in Chicago!

Liquid Dinners
I definitely drink more here. It's just part of the culture. Pub culture. Like last Friday, we drank from 6-12 after work. And what did I have for dinner? A bag of crisps.

Indian Food
I eat a lot of it. I even buy it at the grocery store so I can eat it for dinner. In fact I had some tonight. Come to think of it, I had it last night too.

Reading and Writing
I do more of it now than I ever have since school. On my fourth book which is a slower pace than I want. Granted the last book was an autobiography 600 pages long. I think I miss the structure of school. I guess you can call blogging writing. =) But I look at it as efficient mass email.

Trying new things
Yoga. I probably wouldn't have joined that back home. =) Eating alone in restaurants, and online dating too. Well technically I haven't been on a date yet, but at least I'm signed up!

Outside of the comfort zone
Being outside of my comfort zone is becoming more comfortable. Its hard to explain, and perhaps better articulated in person, but pushing yourself to do things that you're not comfortable doing or things that you thought you couldn't do; makes your learn so much about yourself. Its so easy to take the easy way out or stick to doing things that you are comfortable with, but if you take that risk once in a while, you'll learn something about yourself that you probably wouldn't have ever known. It could be something physical like running your first 10K or marathon, or even something career-oriented like going back to school or switching careers!

Never be stagnant. Life's too short. In just 6 months I've done things I never imagined I would be doing if I decided to stay and not go. I'll be honest, when I signed my offer letter to move here, I had my doubts and fears, and wasn't 100% excited about it. But I think I'm finally settling in.

I was at a bar with a friend on Sunday night having some drinks and we both said that if we could bring a handful of close friends from back home and move them here, it would be perfect! I guess I'll just have to find new ones here. After 6 months, I'm still working on it! =)

Drivers Ed!!

I finally got to drive on the wrong side of the road today! Very exciting! I felt like I was in drivers education again. Basically my old boss had to pick up his car from the dealer so he drove to work and had already paid the congestion charge.

Right after work my coworker and I took turns driving. The best was that it was also a manual transmission! Not only did I have to drive on the wrong side, but the gear box was also on the wrong side! Shifting with my left hand was really strange. Luckily I didn't bruise my right hand trying to grab for the shifter!

Like I said, it felt like driver's ed all over again. My coworker drove for a bit, then we swapped. My old boss was riding the back seat giving us advice. After we both took turns my old boss even asked us to drop him off so we could go cruising! So we took turns again driving all around town!

It was so much fun. It was a totally different experience since I spend most of my time either walking or taking public transportation. I noticed that the city is not as big traveling in a car. What normally would take a long time taking the tube, took maybe half the time on the car. Also, with so many people in this city you have to be so much more alert. Motorcycles, pedal bikes, big red buses and pedestrians are everywhere. You'd think driving on the wrong side of the road and car was bad enough!

The best advice my old boss gave me is to remember that the driver's side always faces the middle of the road in a two lane road. Which if you think about it, is the same as the States. So turning left I always have to take the inner lane, while turning right, I had to go wide! And if I remember correctly, is completely opposite to what I'm use too since the driver's side is now on the passenger side.

After a while though things get more comfortable where you don't think about it as much. My old boss even told us that we could borrow the car anytime as long as we fill up the tank! The problem with that is that gas or "petrol" as they call it here averages over $6.00 here per gallon! We stopped by the gas station and to fill up the tank cost about $70.00!

Yoga Part II
So I started my second session of Yoga yesterday. The class was packed. There were 2 other girls that had already taken it with me. We were veterans. The best part was that the teacher called us to stand in the front row of class so people can watch us!
Luckily my bodily functions were under control.