“ 每个人都在旅行的路上，最终的目的地就是自己的家。这个家不住着你的家人与朋友，也没有最美丽的风景，只有属于你自己的一颗心。这就是旅行的意义。”
After Portugal, we spent our last six days in Spain. In terms of weather, it was not even close to being perfect compared to Portugal. This was true particularly for Seville, because it was literally blazingly hot like standing on stove top, or inside an oven, whichever was hotter. And I was not even exaggerating.
Whilst in Barcelona, we experienced a heavy downpour while visiting Park Guell. Luckily, the attractions that Spain had to offer made up for it because they were equally beautiful and stunning as well compared to the ones we saw in Portugal. All of us stopped at Seville before moving onto Madrid, which was another lively city with so much to see and do.
 |
| Plaza De Espana in Seville made me feel so small!! |
 |
| Such an engaging view from the top! |
 |
| 马德里不思议。 |
 |
| At Alcala Gate, Madrid. |
 |
| All of us in front of Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid. =P |
However, it's quite hard to find a proper meal to eat especially during dinner time because the locals usually would only serve tapas (cold or warm appetisers) at night. It was very new to us in the beginning but it encouraged us to share our food to make it into a complete meal so I reckoned it was a pretty brilliant culture. And the best part of it - they were lip-smacking good especially the ones found in the San Miguel Market, a vibrant urban market that offered a wide variety of nice food and wine. =)
 |
| Portion of Gulas - little white fish that looked like noodles. |
 |
| Variety of salmon and codfish tapas in San Miguel Market. |
 |
Front to back:
Octopus tapas
Tuna with anchovies and guindilla
Codfish, brandada with lumpfish caviar |
 |
| Personally, the best Sangria of the whole trip was found in San Miguel Market. =) |
 |
| The perfect combination - I usually disliked olives but God they were tasty. |
 |
| Chopitos - the best fried food I had ever had in my life!! |
Our third city in Spain was Segovia, which was nothing like the other cities in Spain. It was old, unique, sleepy and quiet in its own way despite the fact that it was flooded with thousands of tourists. While being there, we tried out the famous restaurant that was well-known for its signature roast suckling pig. We thought we're gonna be served the whole little pig until we realised how expensive that would be. It was kind of a funny experience, although not as funny as the story of Vivian locking herself up. (sorry Vivian, but it's true).
 |
| The smashing Aqueduct of Segovia. |
 |
| The must-try crispy roast suckling piggy. |
 |
| The Snow White Castle. |
 |
| The charming view from the castle. |
The last city of our trip was Barcelona, which was my favourite city in Spain because literally there were so much to feast our eyes and taste buds on. On the first day, we joined the free walking tour and visited Park Guell later on that day. At night, we managed to find a small local bistro recommended by the hostel owner that served flavoursome tapas. If I were allowed to choose the very one restaurant that I wanted to try out again during the whole trip, this would no doubt be my choice. =)
 |
Lovely breakfast with salami sandwich, coffee and churros
with chocolate drinks before beginning our walking tour. |
 |
| Holding the famous dragon in Park Guell. |
 |
| Could you believe that it's not a lizard, but a dragon? |
 |
| Park Guell after the rain. |
 |
| 3 of us in Park Guell. |
 |
| Tapas 1: Fried fish!! |
 |
| Tapas 2: The octopus. |
 |
| Tapas 3: Forgot what it's called but it tasted so much like Malaysian food!! |
 |
| Tapas 4: Fried squids with lemon. |
 |
| Tapas 5: They had strong smell but they were still good! |
On the next day, we visited the famous La Boqueria market in the morning. We had breakfast at the famous Pinotxo Bar and the food definitely didn't disappoint. Of course, we wouldn't leave Barcelona until we visited the majestic Sagrada Familia. By visiting a few more famous buildings, we finally completed our tiring 12-day journey. A big thank you to those who planned and made this trip so much fun and memorable. =)
 |
| Having breakfast at the Pinotxo Bar. |
 |
| With the must-visit Sagrada Familia behind us. |
No doubt that traveling, particularly a 12-day trip like this, could help us discover a lot of things that we didn't know about others and ourselves. It revealed a lot of sides of myself that I didn't know I had or those that I didn't want myself to have.
First of all, I could never pretend that I was happy when I was not and I figured it was a bad trait. Secondly, once somebody made me go mad especially when I was having a good day, my mood would go straight to hell and would never recover for that entire day even though he/she had apologised a thousand times.
Thirdly, there was nothing in this world that I hated more than fighting over the same stuff over and over again. Lastly, I would usually snap at those closest to me and I knew it's bad so I would try to snap at those I didn't give a shit about next time. So, thank you so much for all the patience and tolerance. =)
In the end, I guessed knowing ourselves and others all too well sometimes wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing as it would help us learn and figure out who we really were, what we wanted and most importantly what we didn't want in life.
Stay With Me - Sam Smith
