Nou Camp

One of the biggest reasons why I wanted to go to Barcelona was to visit Camp Nou, home stadium of FC Barcelona!

Having been to both Bernabeu and Camp Nou in the same visit, I think Bernabeu feels slightly taller and their tour is more systematic and their display is better organized, more to see and commercialized. But Camp Nou organized something a little cheesy but to me, was the biggest difference between the 2 stadiums.

For Bernabeu, we would exit from the playing field into the dressing room for viewing. In Camp Nou, we exit the dressing room into the field and they play crowd noise at the exit. I think for soccer players, you will understand what I mean and it was that experience that made me feel that the Camp Nou tour was messy but more catered for the EXPERIENCE.

I also got to hear how the song of Barca was sung and their use of technology in terms of their videos, touchscreens was really good.There was this incredible video room that was really huge and showed some of the past highlights of the previous Champions League - it was cool. I took a video of it, as a photo just won´t do it justice.

Overall, I loved the experience of coming here and I learnt a lot about FC Barcelona from the visit - it was the first place i went upon reaching Barcelona! that was how much I wanted to come here. I think I spent about 3 hours here and oh.. I got to lift the Champion´s League trophy (no picture though)!

Lack of posting

One reason why I couldn´t really post in Barcelona was because the computer usage was till 11pm and I was seldom back in the hostel by 11pm. We could use it till about 1130pm but usually I only have like 10 mins to do a bit of surfing on the next day´s activities.

So, why was I always out late? This was because the nights in Barcelona only starts at 10pm! I was either out drinking with David and the girls or visiting some sites at night (like the first night for the San Jant festival). I don´t have pictures for the night site for the last night, but I do have pictures for the night out with David and gals.

At the end of Barcelona

When it was time to leave Barcelona, I left it feeling a little sad, as I made several good friends on this leg of the journey and spent time with them either exploring the city or having dinner. Below, I have the pictures of David, Cecelia and Lexi and there is one other person whom I haven´t uploaded the pictures of, and he was called Owen.
David is from Canada, near Quebec, in a town called Rimouski (i think) and he is a social worker too.. lol. Cecelia and Lexi are sisters and they are Australians. They are from Sunshine Coast, but currently Cece is based in Sydney and Lexi is in London. Owen is from China, Canton area, so we kinda hit it off as we could converse in both chinese and cantonese, but he is currently a student in Macau University - if I go Macau, I have someone who can bring me to nice places to eat there already.

Out of everyone, I got to hang out with David the most as we arrived just a day apart and we kinda wanted to see the same things. I can only post those photos later as I have to upload them first.

Because of the nice company I had, it was kinda sad to leave Barcelona as it would have been great to explore more of the place with them. We did agreed to keep in contact if we ever go to each other´s country (though I suspect it will be a long time before I go Canada...).

Crazy First Night

As I need to run off to go to see Sagrada Familia, I will post a very short one.

Last night was San Jant Night or something like that and it was a really crazy festival in Barcelona. I was all washed up and ready to get into bed at 1015, but when I learnt of the fiesta, I just changed and ran out without a map.. lol... to the beach and it was amazing.

So many people were there and there was lots of fireworks setting off and the whole city was filled with loud bangs, like kenna attack like that. But it was crazy and the first night that I was out in the city till 2am in the morning.. hahaha.

Going on to Barcelona Tomorrow

Today was not a good day in San Seb as it was chilly and rainy the whole day.. so sianz, cos cannot go to the beach. Hopefully I will get to do so in Barcelona.

Thus for today, it was a day of resting and also to wash stuff so that I will have enough for the remainder of the trip.. ate quite a bit of pinxtos today, I think I will stop eating them in Barcelona for a couple of days as they are expensive and not very filling...

I can´t believe that my trip is coming to an end soon.. time really flies when you are enjoying yourself. Hopefully I get to blog when I am in Barcelona, as I believe there will be lotsa things to see and I feel energized to go again after resting here in San Seb. I do agree with May though, travelling on my own for one month is a little too much after a while, but nevertheless, it has been fun. I should be going Nou Camp tomorrow!!!!! Very excited about it but it will be after a 5 plus hours train ride.. lol.

Segovia - Recap

Let me recap the first place I went to in Spain, and that was Segovia. This is a small town about an hour away from Madrid and the highlights of this place was the Alcazar, the Church as well as an imposing acqueduct which was still standing. Also, this place was famous for its Cochinillos, which was roasted suckling pig.


I took this picture at a tower of the fort, otherwise known as the Alcazar. It was an interesting place and it talked about the significance of the fort. Inside were many suits of armour and it was a very interesting place because of its history behind it.

The picture below is that of the acqueduct and it is an imposing figure in one of the plazas there at Segovia. In fact, many people were sitting around in the presence of this imposing igure, bidding their time to chill out.

Besides the 2 attraction mentioned above, there was also a cathedral which was one of the biggest which I have seen in Europe so far. I took photos inside, but I don´t have space to put everything here, so I will only place what I took of the cathedral at night.

I also tried out the cochinillo and thpough it was quite expensive, it was incredibly nice tastng. It´s like roasted pork with a crispy skin and it was not dry. It was so excellent that I finished it until there was literally nothing left.

Segovia was a wonderful little town that was rather nice to just walk around and explore. There were like 30 small museums and chapels but I just visited the main ones because I wanted time to chill and people watch instead.

Not so Sunny San Sebastian

Today San Sebastian was very cloudy and I didn´t stay at the beach much because it was rather chilly. I heard that it would rain tomorrow. I hope not because I want to go to the beach to chill and swim.

I enjoyed today though, because it was a rather chill out day. I didn´t need to go to museums, no fix timing to follow, just wandering around the streets of San Sebastian. It was nice just to walk around and do basically nothing.

I tried out some tapas today, and in San Seb, they are called pinxtos. They are not cheap, but very nice tasting and I guess, eating them once in a while should be alright.

That´s foie pinxto with some apple compote. I didn´t like foie gra in Paris but this one was pretty sublime. This was eaten at La Cuchura. I think I will eat at La Cepa tomorrow. I walked around their bar today and the pinxtos look great!