the stars always shine brightest when the night is at its darkest: September 2007

Well nothing to do.. so did up my photos.. so here you go!

2nd stop: Venice

Interesting people

Look at the guy holding the broom! It was madness.

3rd stop: Florence

Not many photos taken there, since we couldn't get any photos from the Uffizi museum. Adrian kept calling it Uiffi, which is hilarious.

4th stop: Rome

Jason and co. left us in Florence, so we were left with me, chloes, adrian, and louis. Did a whole lot of things on the first night. From morning, till late night. Amazing.

Recommendation: DO NOT COVER EVERYTHING IN A DAY. I almost died. My legs felt like they were about to drop off anytime.

5th stop: Barcelona

I think I took the most photos here. Place that never sleeps. Seriously. The people were so lively and friendly. Love Barcelona!

Our first home-cooked meal, by of course, none other than chloe lim. All I did was stand around and observe. HA. I'm really useless in the kitchen.

At Parc. Guell. by Antonio Gaudi, a famous architect really well-known in Barca.

Met up with Stella and Alvin, and had my first taste of paella along La Ramblas. Expensive

Here I am at the famous Sagrada Familia. Was abit disappointing though. Not as spectacular as I thought it'll be. But it was still fun. Climbing up the weaving stairs, crossing from tower to tower.

My favourite: Tour of Camp Noa. MAN, I had the time of my life there! Got to visit the changing room, broadcast room, player's bench, the field, etc. The assistants there were really friendly! OOH, and I paid like 13 euros to get a photo with Henry and Ronaldhino. SERIOUSLY, I think it was worth it. Love it so much. HEH.

At the topless beach. Feasted my eyes, as well as roasted myself. I'm seriously still peeling. DAMN. Totally not prepared. No sunblock, no moisturiser. No wonder I'm still peeling and chao-ta'ed.

6th stop: Madrid

Tried our luck outside the stadium when we heard there was a match that night. As it so happens, the guy spotted us and we managed to get tickets for the match. Robbed of our money though. Expensive. Paid 40 euros for tickets worth 15 euros. And he told us, we're seating right next to each other. And we happily thought, what luck we have! As it turns out, we were again, cheated. We're like seating at two ends of the same sector. BAH. But we decided to just seat it out and see whether anybody comes to chase us away. At least we had some luck at that, nobody did and we happily sat there. Great match and great atmosphere. I was totally into it. Raul and V.Nist scored. Woohoo. Spectacular.

Ah YES.. by the way, an interesting thing happened in Madrid. WE MISSED OUR TRAIN TO LISBON. HA. Yeah I know I know, how in the world did we manage that! But yeah, shit happens. Anyway, the funny thing, is that our roomie from the hostel, (china guy), missed his train too! Cuz I suppose he knew our train timing were the same and at the same station, so upon seeing us so relaxed and not leaving yet, he decided not to leave earlier too (that's what he told us). And so, we bumped into each other on the metro, and we were all stranded at the train station. HA. Highly amusing actually.

So anyway, we checked in to the same hostel for another night.. and because of the miss, we were able to go to the royal palace, which was closed for the 2 days we were supposed to be there for some official ceremony. HEH. So all in all, not too bad. A good miss indeed.

7th stop: Lisbon

Really a beautiful place. People are really sweet and friendly. But transport is a bitch. Walking is crazy cuz Lisbon is really made up of 7 hills, so walking = climbing up hills. Which so sux.. tried that on the first day to St. George's castle. I think me and chloes both, our legs nearly fell apart.

A day well spent at Sintra, a small town just outside Lisbon. There was this place that was absolutely fantastic, and highly recommended for anybody who goes there! Quinta something. Check it out. It has like underground taverns and tunnels/caves for you to explore. Really fun. Bring a torchlight though. We had to rely on my handphone flash, which died-ed soon cuz I didn't charge my phone. Dang.

Missed a visit to the Pena Palace, which is world-famous, because of some procession or some exhibition for vintage vehicles, (check out the last 2 photos), so all transportation came to a halt. Met others waiting for the bus and they were they since 4pm! (It was 4.50 then). They told us that some tried to climb up the hill to the palace, but gave up and came back down cuz it was really too high. HA. Poor things. Hope to be back in Sintra to visit Pena Palace.

Some miscelleneous photos courtesy of Chloe: