Today was the fateful day of my consultation session with my PY1CL Essay Marker.
[Refer to my previous post: 48/100 for some background knowledge, but essentially I emailed the marker to discuss the things that went wrong with my essay and potentially adjust the marks I had received]
Unfortunately, the conclusion was that my marks were going to stay the same. That really sucks but I’m not as devastated as I expected?? I mean yeah obviously I’m still not happy about my grades for this module but I’ve learnt so much from her just in that short half an hour consultation session. She’s taught me how to put the studies I’ve read in a useful hierarchy, how I should have a checklist for every study I read and how I should structure my essays for the upcoming summer exams. I’ve gained new insights that I’ve never had before and I’m really glad I insisted on fighting for every chance that I had. Although the outcome wasn’t the one I desired, I gained so much more in the process.
And now I can finally understand why my marks had to stay that way. Because of my unconventional approach in writing the essay, it had the potential of scoring a high first. However, due to the lack of detail and imprecise analysis, it affected the strength of the essay to a greater extent than it would have for a conventional essay. In other words, I wouldn’t have scored so badly if I had chosen to do things the traditional way because there would be a reduced demand on drawing strong links between my points and evidence. Ohwell, I guess my risk taking this time didn’t pay off but in the words of Jason Mraz “you win some or you learn some”.
I’ve learnt so much this time, so hopefully I’ll be able to win for my summer exams and the rest of my coursework.
The score for my Clinical Psychology essay, that’s worth 75% of PY1CL. And I can’t do anything about the module either, because the other 25% came from CAQs in Spring Term.
It’s like all that hard work amounted to nothing. Well technically I still passed (since the passing rate is 40%) and first year grades don’t even count towards my final degree but the disappointment and frustration is very overwhelming. It’s been pretty long since I’ve felt so upset over my grades- maybe this is how uni reminds me of how it feels huh.
I didn’t know what to do- thankfully I’ve my besties to cheer me up, as well as Corinne and Jade who told me to email the marker. Thank you friends for being there, you’re probably the only redeeming factor in this whole situation.
Ohwell I guess I can bid my dreams of having Straight As in first year goodbye. So much for my optimism. This is why you shouldn’t get your hopes up in the first place.
Sighpie, back to work- still going to cling on to as many As as I can get this AY.
This is the last travel-related post for Spring Break 2016. It will be heavily focused on the linguistics of Spanish and Catalan, so if you’re not interested in these things, then don’t bother reading on HAHA.
As Madrid is the capital of Spain, everyone uses the “Standard Variety” which is Spanish. However, in Barcelona, people use Catalan- a dialect of the Spanish language. There are distinct differences between the 2, especially in terms of vocabulary, but the basic syntactic and lexical structures stay the same so they are somewhat mutually intelligible. This contrasts with the comparison made between Portuguese and Spanish. While Portuguese and Spanish share certain lexical items, the extent of their similarity does not entail mutual intelligibility. I’ve no idea why but I get so excited observing the application of my linguistics knowledge in real life. (So yeah good choice XM for picking a BSc in SLT HAHA)
After spending about a week in Spain, my knowledge of the Spanish phonemes and vocabulary are as follows (these are all that I can remember off the top of my head so pardon me if it’s a little limited):
The letter ‘j’ is phonetically realised as /h/, the letter ‘c’ is phonetically realised as /k/ and the letter ‘y’ is phonetically realised as /I/.
Por Favor- Please
Cafe con Leche- Coffee with milk
Jamon- Ham
Fresa- Strawberry
Chocolate con churros- (Hot) Chocolate with churros
Porra – Spanish version of 油条
Tapas- Small dishes
Y- and
Gracias- Thank You
Hola- Hello
Adiós- Goodbye
Bolsa/Bolso – Bag
Estrella- Star
Vamonos- Let’s go
Amigas- Friends
Losiento- Sorry
Salida- Exit
Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez – counting from 1 to 10
Other Spanish words with no English equivalent: Sangria, Mojito, Paella
However, to be honest, most of my Spanish vocabulary came from watching Dora the Explorer as a kid and not from picking the language up during this trip- this just goes to show how important Child Language Acquisition is. (NOTE TO SELF: expose my children to as many languages as possible when they’re young)
Fortunately, I did manage to pick up some Catalan as well, so being older doesn’t mean that you can’t learn new languages! It just means that you need to invest alot more time and effort to retain the new linguistic knowledge.
Gràcies- Thank you
Adéu- Goodbye
Sortida- Exit
HAHA okay my Catalan knowledge is severely limited but it’s still better than nothing.
Through this trip, I’ve come to realise that apart from the food and the attractions (i.e. the usual touristy things that people do when they travel), I enjoy myself the most when I get some time to just walk around the city, soak in it’s atmosphere, talk to the locals and learn the local language. I want to get to know the place and not just go through the list of “top ten things to do” when I’m in a foreign place. It feels good learning more about myself and I guess I really needed the alone time away from work to recharge. I’ve played hard and now it’s time to work even harder. As much as I don’t want to leave my vacation behind, it’s time to face reality and tackle my mountain of work head on.
Goodbye #portuGIRL , #MEIdrid and #barXINlona. Hello #unitedXINdom and #xmminReading
It’s our last day in Spain and I can’t believe my 12 day long vacation is coming to an end 😢
We’ve had an early start today for we needed to pack our bags and check out before 10am. Last night, we also managed to book tickets online for La Sagrada Família, so we were heading back there this morning.
Stepping out of the Metro, La Sagrada Família greeted us in all its glory. Looking at it for the second time did not reduce its impressiveness. If anything, it only made me more aware of its intricacy within the grandeur that it exuded. As usual, there were tons of people, but this time we could enter the church without a hitch. When I first set my eyes on its interior, I was left speechless. People were not exaggerating when they described its beauty- it is honestly well worth the wait. The stained glass was exquisite; when the light shone through them, they bathed the entire church in this rainbow-tinted glow that was simply captivating. The sheer height of the towers was stunning and the numerous statues/figurines that lined the walls had so much detail, I couldn’t comprehend the anount of time and effort that must have went into creating them. The photos that we’ve taken may look pretty, but they certainly do not do the church justice- you really have to be in there yourself to truly appreciate how gorgeous it is. I am so glad that we had the opportunity to do so and I really don’t think you can find another church that looks more beautiful than this one. So thank you Gaudí for creating such a magnificent piece of artwork- he really deserves the title of “God’s Architect”.
Unfortunately, I had a plane to catch, so I had to leave the girls but I couldn’t think of a better way to wrap up my 12 day vacation through Portugal and Spain.
Day 3 in Barcelona and it’s finally bright and sunny! The temperature has actually hit 20 degrees today- the perfect weather for summer dresses 👗👗👗
This morning, we had a cheap and good breakfast at a cafe near Arc de Triomf Metro station. The nice meal was made better by the hot policemen that were having breakfast at the neighbouring tables HAHA.
Anyway, our first stop for today was Parc Güell- a manmade landscape created by artist Gaudi. Upon reaching the entrance, we took loads of photos because the aerial view of Barcelona actually formed the back drop of Parc Güell. However, to our horror, we realised that this was not an open place with free entry, and they actually practiced strict crowd control. This meant that even if we bought tickets then, we could only enter at 6.30pm on the same day. The wait was such a turn off but we decided to buy those tickets anyway because we didn’t want to miss such an iconic attraction. In the meantime, we could move on to other places of interest instead.
By the time we got to the Metro, it was already lunch time, so we decided to get some food at the Gothic Quarter. All was well until we reached Jaume I station- while riding the escalator out of the Metro station, someone pressed the Emergency Brake button and I literally fell onto my knees. It’s been so long since I fell so hard, I was in shock for pretty long even though I only got some scrapes on my shins and knees. But thinking back on it now, the way I fell seems pretty funny HAHA.
Thankfully, our good lunch made up for my hard fall. We actually had a 3 course meal for about €10 and the food was of high quality as well. (Oh and did I mention that they played JJ Lin’s song in the restaurant?! It was an incredibly bizzare experience)
Cucumber Canoli with Avocado CreamMonk Fish with Potato PureeCrema Catalana
Of course, there was no better way to end off lunch than a good serving of gelato.
Mint Chocolate & Hazelnut
After our satisfying meal, we made our way to Barceloneta beach. It felt so good walking on the sand, watching the waves and feeling the sea breeze blow through your hair. It’s been so long since I’ve felt the sun on my skin and the sand on my feet. Oh but I was very shocked by how cold the sand was- being used to the burning hot sand on Sentosa, I got a rude shock when I removed my shoes and stepped onto the beach. Other than that, the sea has been always my happy place and I’m really glad it’s still as therapeutic as before. Jump Shot with Adreena 💕
We had such a good time frolicking around and doing Vogue photoshoots on the beach, but it was soon approaching 6pm and it was time to head back to Parc Güell.
We were so excited to finally enter Parc Güell and intially, we were pretty impressed with the artistic architecture within this attraction. The exotic and unique structures were certainty intriguing and refreshing to look at.
Parc Güellhow Parc Güell actually looks like
Unfortunately for us, after walking around for abit, we realised that the entire place was pretty small. However, size aside, we also discovered that the Google images / photos taken by others of Parc Güell are actually the result of heavy editing and filtering. The actual colours of the mosaics are not vibrant at all and they make up a really small percentage of the supposed iconic landscape. Generally, it was a large disappointment and I felt so cheated of what I’ve seen online. And to think that we were all so insistent on going in to see what Parc Güell had to offer. Sigh, I guess it just goes to show how looks can be so deceiving. heavily edited &filtered version usually found online
By then, it was getting late so we went back to Las Ramblas (AGAIN HAHA) for dinner. We each ordered a set comprising a main and 2 tapas- a satisfying way to round off our last full day in Barcelona.
Tapas Mixed Paella
That’s pretty much it for today. Definitely not looking forward to going back to Reading tomorrow because it means that I have to go back to all my responsibilities 😩😩😩 Ohwell, at least it’s been a good vacation- time to stop running away from my mountain of work.
2nd day in Barcelona and WE’RE ABSOLUTELY LOVING IT, albeit the slightly crappy weather today. It was drizzling on and off throughout the day, but it didn’t deter us from moving on full steam ahead with our list of planned activities.
After grabbing a quick breakfast on the go, we embarked on a long walk to the first attraction of the day- La Sagrada Familia (Church of the Sacred Family). I was in awe of its sheer magnitude and the intricacy of the old architecture made it so much more special. Unfortunately, construction was still ongoing and that somewhat decreased its aesthetic value. I also didn’t like the restored parts of the church, because it didn’t look like it was being restored. Rather, it was more that they were replacing the old materials with new ones and the “newly restored” parts of the church looked pretty artificial- resembling nothing of the grandeur that the original bits possessed. Nevertheless, I was still incredibly glad that I got to appreciate this beautiful monument in this lifetime. We were all really excited about going in, but it was a 4 hour wait till we could get tickets- just because this church was so popular. We had no choice but to give its interior a miss so for those of you who are planning to visit it, remember to book your tickets online so that you have guaranteed entrance on the day that you go. (*NOTE TO SELF should I ever decide to come back to Barcelona)
La Sagrada Familia
Since we couldn’t gain entrance to this attraction, we decided to move on to the next planned destination- Casa Batlló. It’s unique architecture certainly stood out in the middle of the city centre. However, we decided that it wasn’t worth paying €20 to see its interior, so we moved on after snapping a few photos. Casa Battló
Technically, we were supposed to do our shopping tonight, but we got distracted while waking back to Las Ramblas 😅. We stopped by Zara, H&M, Pull&Bear- shops that unleashed all of our inner shopaholics HAHA. We were really happy with our purchases but it’s so much better shopping here because of the currency difference between the Pound and Euro, so that’s like the cherry on top HEHE.
All that walking made us hungry, so we headed to iTAPA for a tapas buffet! The food quality was really good and we all ate our fill, so I think it’s one of those buffets where you can get the bang for your buck. We actually spent a whole 2 hours eating there so yeap, it was definitely worth that €13.95.
iTAPA
We needed to walk everything off after stuffing our faces, so we went to Mercado de La Boqueria- a market located just opposite our lunch place. The whole place was bustling with people and it’s filled with stalls selling fruit juices, ham, cheese, vegetables, fruit, nuts, chocolate and candy. There was even a section dedicated to raw food and it reminded me so much of the wet markets back in Singapore. Mercado de La Boqueria
Exploring the market didn’t take long, so we took the rest of the afternoon to explore the Gothic Quarter. The old architecture built by the Romans was beautiful- there’s this certain charm to them that always draws me in.
Gothic QuarterGothic Quarter
The next place on our list was Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar- a church located within the Gothic Quarter. There’s free entry between 5pm-8pm (so take note if you’re planning to go there). Its exterior looked nice but as usual, its the interior that took our breaths away.
Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar- ExteriorBasilica de Santa Maria del Mar- Interior
Since we were pretty much done with our itinerary for the day, we decided to head to a nearby cafe for some gelato. I really liked my combination of lemon sorbet and dark chocolate gelato- the tart lemon flavour cuts through the richness of the chocolate really nicely.
We then spontaneously decided that we’ll watch a football match tonight to make up for the one that we didn’t manage to watch in Madrid (and also because we were honestly done with our shopping and there was no need to do more haha).
We headed to CAPPUCCINO- a cafe and not a bar haha that had a large screen TV for all of its customers to watch football. We actually asked the waitress if they were going to show the match, to the amusement of all the staff there 😅.
Barcelona vs Atlético Madrid: Torres scored the first goal right between the keeper’s legs HAHA that’s some mad skills. But then he got red carded 35minutes into the match 🙄. In the second half of the game, Neymar had so many close shots, but the saves by Atlético’s keeper were just too good. Barcelona (Suarez) finally scored at 62 minutes!!! The whole cafe cheered HAHA. 73 minutes in and everyone rejoiced again because Barcelona scored their 2nd goal!! And the final score: 2-1
It’s been an intense day AND night, time to rest and get ready for sunny Barcelona tomorrow!!
The weather today was absolutely dreary. The skies were gloomy and the rain was pouring- which is exactly how UK weather is like zzz. Our mood for the remaining time we had in Madrid was certainly dampened (literally).
After getting some breakfast at a cafe down the street, we walked to Gran Vía to do some last minute shopping. Adreena got a bomber jacket from Stradivarius while Ailin and I both got tops from Primark. For some reason, we were all really low on energy, so we decided to get ourselves some llao llao at Sol. I swear, we were the only crazy people eating llao llao on such a cold and rainy day HAHA. sanum #4
Since we had to catch the train to Barcelona in the afternoon, we headed to La Mallorquina to dabao some pastries for lunch. It was touted to be the best pastry shop in the whole of Madrid, and it certainly did not disappoint!
La Mallorquina pastries
The rest of the afternoon was a mad rush, because we had to go back to our apartment, pack our bags then take a 30minute walk to Madrid Atocha Railway Station. The walk there was pretty interesting, as we had not explored that part of Madrid before. The ony downside was how stressful it was navigating around the train station, partly because we weren’t sure if the building we were looking at was actually the train station, coupled with the fact that the language barrier made it difficult for us to read the signs. (Thank god for Corinne 💕) Estación de Madrid Atocha
Thankfully, we managed to make it to our seats on time and the 2.5hour train ride gave us plenty of time to rest before we embarked on the next leg of our journey.
sleeping beauty
When we first reached Barcelona, I got confused between the Metro and the Urban Rail so we wasted €2.15 each (I’M SO SORRY GUYS 😩). But anyway we managed to get to our hostel successfully so all is well. The only thing is that we thought Barcelona would be much warmer, but as it turns out, it feels about the same as Madrid, probably because of the rain and all. Ohwell, hopefully we’ll be able to do away with our sweaters tomorrow. The neighbourhood around our hostel seems pretty nice though. When we first went out, people of all walks of life were milling around the park nearby- there were people cycling, playing games or simply taking evening walks.
There was quite a distance between our hostel and our first planned destination in Barcelona, so we took our time walking around, taking in the street views of the city. Honestly, Barcelona looks so much better than Madrid and the overall vibes are much better as well.
We were going to have dinner, but there was literally a gelato store on every street so Adreena and I couldn’t resist getting a cone each hehe. Banana & Chocolate Gelato
For dinner, we went to try this place called Lonja de Tapas and the food tasted so good. It was a very satisfying meal. Catalana Bread & Risotto with Asparagus and Prawns
Finally the highlight of the night- Las Ramblas. This street essentially comprised a whole range of Spanish restaurants, Gelato shops, artists doing sketches as well as the illegal street vendors that we saw in Madrid. The night life was pretty active and it was fun taking in all the sights around us while walking down the street. It was so funny when some waiters tried to get us to dine at their restaurants by greeting us in Chinese- or at least their attempt at it HAHA. I think they were trying to say 你好 but it all came out sounding like “meow”- I wanted to laugh so bad omg. Just thinking about them meowing at us cracks me up.
On the 2 sides of Las Ramblas are actually rows and rows of shops, bars, restaurants and nightclubs. At one end, there was a gigantic H&M store. However, with only 30 minutes to closing, we could only take a cursory glance at the products. But this was sufficient in enticing all of us to come back tomorrow to buy their clothes because it looked so much better than what Madrid had to offer. And this is only H&M, I can’t imagine how the other clothing stores are going to be like.
On the way back, we felt fine walking back since there were still people walking around and we did stick to the main roads. But at the park near our hostel, this guy came up to Corinne and I and started speaking to us in Spanish. We were all super freaked out because we thought he was some pervert that wanted to chat us up. But as it turned out, he was just telling me that my metro card was sticking out of my back pocket 😅. I feel so bad mistaking him as a bad guy when he was so helpful.
Anyway, this wraps up our first night in Barcelona. It seems really great thus far, so we just need the weather to be nice and sunny over the next few days for us to make the most of what this charming city has to offer.
Today’s the last full day we have in Madrid but it’s been pretty chill- exactly how I feel vacations should be hehe.
We did have an early start today though, especially since we had to wake up at 8 am to shower. Originally, the plan was for all of us to shower last night, but the water heater wasn’t able to last through all 4 of us. Our host Anna, initially warned us about its limited capacity, so she suggested that we have 2 showers consecutively, followed by a break, then the other 2 showers. What we did not expect was for the water to turn ice-cold at the end of the 2nd shower, and it took literally an hour or two for the water to go back to a comfortable tenperature (poor Corinne had to endure the ice-cold water towards the end of her shower). This was why both Ailin and I had to wash our hair the next morning instead.
Perhaps it was due to our wet hair, or Madrid’s weather in general, but it felt exceptionally cold when we stepped outside. The temperature was supposedly tolerable, but once the wind blew, you could literally feel the chill in your bones.
Before starting our itinerary for the day, we went to a local cafe to get some breakfast. All of us had Empanandas- a traditional Spanish patty. Both Adreena and Corinne had the Ham&Cheese one, which was quite bad because it was too salty and there was barely any cheese, while Ailin and I had the Spinach one. I felt so healthy eating it because it was literally this humongous glob of boiled Spinach encased in a puff pastry.
Our first stop was the El Rastro Flea Market, located just 3 minutes from where we were staying. Perhaps due to our experience with markets like Chatuchak, coupled with the fact that we grew up with great Pasar Malams in Singapore, we were severely underwhelmed when we saw how the flea market was like. There was no food section, the products on display actually looked quite unappealing and all the leather products gave off this terrible smell that you could detect miles away. We planned to stay there for 2-3hours, but we actually left before spending an hour there.
El Rastro
On the way to our next destination, we passed by Plaza Mayor again, so we got our delicious €1 fruit juice! It’s super refreshing and they don’t add any sugar. Even Adreena’s freshly squeezed orange juice was good because of it’s natural sweetness (and normally I hate orange juice because of how sour it is haha)
Sandía (Watermelon Juice)
We also unexpectedly walked to Mercado de San Miguel! The stalls in this market looked amazing and the strong heaters within this indoor market were a good respite from the cold winds outside. Also, the guy at the Oyster stall was so cute! 😍😍😍 (I think all of us were eye-candying him hehehe)
Mercado de San Miguel
After getting distracted by other various landmarks/photo spots on the way, we finally made it to our 2nd planned destination- Palacio Real de Madrid! The Royal Palace of Madrid looked so grand and picturesque, both on the exterior and interior. It was a pity that we couldn’t take photos when visiting the Palace Rooms though, I would have loved to keep those beautiful pictures as keepsakes.
Palacio Real de Madrid- ExteriorPalacio Real de Madrid- Interior
Unfortunately for us, the good weather did not last for long and it started raining pretty heavily. We had to wait for abit by roaming around the Palace a little more before we headed back to the Plaza Mayor for lunch.
When the rain reduced to a drizzle, we went to Cafeteria Magerit for some sandwiches. Ailin had the smoked salmon, Adreena had the pork loins while Corinne and I had the calamari. It was really good but the only thing missing was my Singaporean garlic chilli sauce 😢😢 Cafeteria Magerit – Calamari Sandwich
But being gluttons, we had to have llao llao even after having lunch OOPS. After all, “A Sanum (pronounced s-ah-noom) a day keeps constipation away” (Ng, 2016) 😂😂😂
Sanum #3
True to my word, the girls (and myself included) had to take a dump after finishing a Sanum each HAHA. So we decided to make our way back to our apartment to use our nice clean toilets, and take our afternoon Siestas just like a true blue Spaniard.
With Madrid being known for its bars and night life, we wanted to stay out tonight, especially since it was our last night in this city. We then took the rest of the afternoon to plan our itinerary for Barcelona. But due to our Asian efficiency, we still had some time in the evening. Initially, we were supposed to go to Gran Vía to attempt to do more shopping, but on the way there, we chanced upon a hair salon that was open on a Sunday! Guess what, the owners were Chinese because only Asians will ever keep their stores open so late on a weekend when all the other stores don’t even bother. Therefore, in our YOLO holiday mood, we decided to dip dye our hair!! (Sorry in advance to our mothers HAHA)
Our hair LOOKS GREAT:
up close view of my dyed hair hehe But by the time we were all done, we were starving. We literally just went to the nearest restaurant we could find- San Bruno and ordered 2 paellas to share. One chicken, one seafood and it tasted way better than the one we had yesterday. The portion sizes were also much bigger so YAY US. At this point, we were too tired so we just went back to our apartment to have our wanna-be Magnum ice creams hehe.
San Bruno
‘Twas a relaxing and chill day so I guess this made up for the lacklustre experience we had in Madrid. Can’t wait to travel to Barcelona tomorrow hehe 😊
After checking out of my hostel this morning, I headed to Parque de El Retiro using the Metro. An interesting thing about the Metro here is that you don’t have to tap out when you exit from the station- you literally just stand at the gantry and its doors open automatically when its sensors detect you there. This is unlike the Metro in Lisbon as well as other underground trains in other cities.
Upon stepping out of the Retiro Metro station, I immediately felt good vibes from the place because it looked like a carnival with all the food stalls, street performers and mascots. But as I walked through the entire park, I discovered that it was a really beautiful place and I finally understood why so many people have raved about “just another park” (or so I thought before I visited this place) Parque de El Retiro
There was another attraction within the park, called Palacio de Cristal, and oh my goodness it looked so gorgeous. Palacio de Cristal
The exhibition within the palace was intriguing as well.
It was soon time for me to meet the girls though (they’ve finally reached Madrid!), so I made my way back to Sol. But of course, I had to make a detour to get myself some llao llao first hehe.
Sanum #2
When I met the girls at El Oso Y El Madrono (the bear with the strawberry tree), they had the same reaction as I did when I first saw the statue yesterday. Being touted as one of the most common landmarks used as a meeting point in Madrid, we all expected it to be way bigger in size. But ohwell, it still looked pretty cute.
El Oso Y El MadronoWe grabbed a quick lunch at a nearby cafe and then I brought them to try the famous San Gines hot chocolate, churros and porras. It felt like ages since I’ve last seen them so it was a good catch up session as well!!
At 3pm, it was time to check-in at our Airbnb place. Our host Anna was really nice and it felt good to have the whole apartment to ourselves. goofing around in our apartment
After settling in and resting for abit, we decided to head to the Plaza Mayor. It’s essentially a square near the city centre and comprises mainly of restaurants and other food stalls. Since we couldn’t do much there, we took some pictures, bought some food, and moved on to other activities instead.
Well actually, our “other activities” consisted of shopping around the Sol and Gran Vía area. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we didn’t buy anything because the sales weren’t that good or the stock didn’t really match our tastes. And the crowds were insane. We actually had to queue to get tickets to enter Primark. I think this is the first and the last time that we’re doing something loke this.
Anyway, it was getting pretty late so we wanted to get some dinner at a bar and watch the match between Real Madrid vs Barcelona that was going on tonight at 830pm. But we soon found out that the bars here didn’t really work like those in Singapore, in the sense that there were no TVs in the bars for customers to watxh matches together. At this point, we decided to just get ourselves a good dinner, then go back home to watch the match on our TV. Dinner was really good and it only cost us a total of €26 for 4 people!
Mixed PaellaSeafood Salad (Tapas)Octopus Salad (Tapas)
On the way back, we also got some food to snack on while watching the match. Our worries about turning on the TV correctly were unfounded because we managed to do that on the first try. Our real problem came when we were finding the right channel for the match. For some reason, we couldn’t navigate around the channels properly. And when Ailin decided to call our host Anna, we learned that our TV did not have the channel for the match 😂😂 (this was such a failed attempt at trying to integrate with the Spanish football culture HAHA)
But we went ahead with our consumption of Spanish snacks anyway hehe.
THIS IS SO ADDICTIVE OMG
Well, this is pretty much the end of the day for us. Looking forward to more activities tomorrow! 😁😁😁
Interesting is an understatement when describing my overnight train ride from Lisbon to Madrid. While waiting for the train at Oriente station, I sat on the same bench with this American couple. It didn’t take long for us to strike up a conversation, with the topic mostly revolving around travelling. It turns out that they’re from California, and they’ve been to 23 countries thus far. Every year, they take a month off work to travel, but somehow they haven’t been to Asia yet. Naturally, the patriot in me rose to the occasion and I started promoting Singapore to them. The banter between us flowed so easily and it’s quite amazing how we managed to click so well instantly. Sadly, we weren’t seated together in the train, so our acquaintance-ship was a short-lived one.
Although when the train arrived, the platform was thrown into utter chaos. It only managed to reach the station 4 minutes before it was supposed to leave again, so people were rushing in all directions. It didn’t help that the carriages were not labelled clearly as well, so everyone was confused as to where they should go. For me, I thought I went to the right carriage and found my seat, so I happily settled in and made myself comfortable for the 8hour ride. It wasn’t until 12midnight- when the train stopped at some other station, that I got woken up by someone else who claimed that I was in their seat. In my groggy state, I just gave the person my most bewildered face and proceeded to take out my ticket(which by the way was entirely in Spanish). It all seemed fine to me until my neighbour pointed out that my carriage number didn’t match. I was so embarrassed that I grabbed all my stuff and practically ran to the next carriage where I was supposed to be. Thankfully, the rest of the ride was pretty uneventful and mainly consisted of me drifting in and out of sleep.
The first thought I had upon reaching Chamartin station in Madrid was that “THIS IS WAY COLDER THAN I EXPECTED”. After being used to the rather warm weather in Lisbon (which stayed in the range of 10-20degrees), being greeted with blasts of cold wind when I’ve just woken up was certainly not ideal. I hurried as fast as I could in my morning state to the unerground Metro station. Unlike Lisbon, I couldn’t buy the normal Metro card that the people who lived in Madrid used because they had to be pre-ordered (which is really annoying). I ended up buying the tourist pass for 3 days because it’s the same price as if I were to choose the combination of 10 trips on the Metro. It seems like public transport is way more inflexible in Madrid as compared to Lisbon, because here, my choices were limited to either 1 trip, 10 trips or tourist passes; while in Lisbon, I could just top my card up with cash and use it as many times as I liked.
Top: Lisbon Metro; Bottom: Madrid Metro
After getting that our of the way, it was time to figure out how their Metro lines worked and which stations I should make a mental note of. Again, I found Lisbon’s much simpler than Madrid’s because it was less messy and the city centre was confined to a pretty limited area. However, in Madrid, the main city area was quite substantial and covered a number of Metro stations.
Anyway, I decided to go to Sol station since it was located in the city centre and it was also the Metro station near Chocolateria San Gines- the place where I wanted to have my breakfast. They are famous for their hot chocolate plus churros set, but since Cherry and Nicole recommended me their Porras as well, I ordered the set with 2 Porras as an add-on. The hot chocolate was really good but its consistency was so thick it was more like a dip for the churros than a drink on its own. It essentially tasted like melted chocolate anyway. As for the churros, they definitely lived up to their hype but finishing all 6 by myself made me feel quite sick of it OOPS. Oh and for those of you who don’t know what Porras are, they’re essentially 油条. When combined with the chocolate dip, it is heaven in your mouth. Having said all that, I still think it’s not a good idea to eat so much of that alone because you get jelat really easily 😅
After that super heavy breakfast, I walked back to the Vodafone outlet in Sol to get my SIM card for Spain. It’s really odd how I had to show my passport for identification purposes to buy the SIM card, when I didn’t have to do it in Portugal??
Since I could only check-in at Hostal Edreira at 1300, I still had some time to kill. So I decided to take a walk down Gran Vía as well as check out Plaza de Chueca. While the former is Madrid’s main shopping district (their equivalent of Singapore’s Orchard Road), the latter is a place that Corinne mentioned when she sent us the list of places we could potentially visit in Madrid. Gran Vía was pretty nice, it genuinely felt like I was in a bustling city and their shops were huge. Each store, like H&M, Primark, Zara were the size of a mansion and had beautifully decorated interiors. Unfortunately, I honestly got bored after awhile because it was so similar to London and there really wasn’t anything in particular that caught my attention. So I decided to try my luck at Plaza Chueca instead. Sadly, I was sorely disappointed. Apart from some nice looking buildings around the square, there didn’t seem to be any particular feature that would incentivise people to visit the place. I even checked Google Maps 5 times and walked around the place thrice to make sure that I got it right.
Gran Vía H&M
Gran Vía Plaza de Chueca I wanted to take a break from exploring the city centre and go check-in at my hostel instead. Unlike the one in Lisbon, this hostel was really easy to spot because of it’s huge double wooden doors. However, to get to the reception, you had to climb 4 flights of stairs – which doesn’t sound too bad except for the fact that the sensors for the automated lights aren’t very sensitive so I had to use my phone’s torch to make sure my path was well lit. My single room comes with an en-suite bathroom and looks pretty clean, so that’s pretty good. The only downside is that the walls are rather thin so I can hear my neighbours through my wall well, it’s for tonight only anyway, I’ll just have to make do.
After freshening up, I decided to walk back to Sol to get myself some llao llao for lunch. After all, Spain is where it originated so technically it should taste the best here. I ordered my favourite Sanum, with muesli, strawberries, mango, banana and Rafaellao sauce. It tasted so home-y and brought me so many feelings of joy and comfort while eating it. The cute little girl that was smiling at me the whole time we were both eating our respective Sanums probably helped as well hehe.
San from llao llao
I also saw some really good street performances today, such as the street dance/B-Boy one, a man who played the saxophone really well and a Spanish Mariachi band (they were all in the Sol area!)
As I really didn’t have much planned for today, I decided to do some shopping around the city centre. While I didn’t actually buy anything (apart from water), it felt great immersing myself in such busy environments again. The best part was that shops didn’t close till 10pm, and the sun didn’t set till 8/9pm so I hadthe luxury of time to browse through the stores and their products. However, I did notice something really interesting happening on the streets. There was this group of men who laid the products they were selling onto white canvas sheets. The 4 corners of the canvas sheets were attached to strings, which were then attached to a main string that was held by the vendor. Essentially, the whole mechanism worked like a drawstring bag- this efficiency was of crucial importance because they were illegal street vendors, so whenever one of them spotted the police patrols coming their way, all of them would immediately pull their strings up and walk away to avoid getting caught. I thought it was a pretty ingenious method of getting around things- NOT THAT I AM ENDORSING THEIR ILLEGAL BEHAVIOUR THOUGH!
Time really flies when you’re having fun and it wasn’t long before the shops started closing for the day. I headed to the nearby McDonald’s and got myself some Chicken Bites and Small Fries for dinner. Chicken Bites are just deep fried chicken balls- but I think they taste much better than Chicken McNuggets. Maybe I was really hungry or I haven’t had McDonald’s in too long, but I really enjoyed the fries for some reason HAHA.
Before heading back to the hostel, I met Derek and his friends at Maestro Churrero for a quick chat. It was good hearing similar accents again, even if it’s for a short while. I guess this concludes my first day in Madrid, can’t wait to meet the Reading girls tomorrow afternoon!
well, it’s for tonight only anyway, I’ll just have to make do. 
adventuresofxmm 