Madrid, Spain

Spain was another one of my "must-see" countries for my Grad Trip and if you read this, you would already know my impression of Spain. Perhaps it is simply the cities I chose to visit but I didn't walk away with a positive impression. That being said, it also wasn't negative. Madrid was my first stop and it was quite difficult finding my way to the hotel due to the crowd. It was a little bit of a shock to experience it as it had been a while that I had encountered so many people in one spot.


Palacio Real de Madrid




The train station was very cool. It had a garden inside and a small pond with lots of turtles!



Oddly enough, Madrid reminded me a lot of the US, specifically Philadelphia. The coolest thing about Madrid was Parque de Retiro which had Palacio de Cristal. You may remember it from the very popular photo on the internet a few years back. See here.









Of course, a visit to Spain would not be complete without eating churros. San Gines opened in 1864 and it is constantly buzzing with people. It was quite confusing since the system wasn't explained and the eatery was packed. Basically, you lined up to order and pay from the counter and then would be provided with a receipt. Well, if you wanted takeaway you then proceeded to the other counter to collect the order. Otherwise you would sit down, give the receipt to the waiter who would return with your order. Very confusing since hardly any of the workers actually said anything (aside from how much you owed).


Yes that cup is full of melted chocolate! This was so incredibly sickening due to the oil. Very fresh but I felt horrible afterwards due to the grease. When in Spain.

Overall Thoughts
The food was super tasty! Dinner for the first night was at this amazing restaurant (the name escapes me) with lots of good food and a great atmosphere. That being said, the second day was not so good. Got tricked/ confused by the menu outside the restaurant and ate pretty expensive standard food. The thing I really liked was the free tapas upon being seated at a table in a restaurant. I am aware that Spain gets quite a bad reputation for petty theft, however it was quite disconcerting to see heavily armed police officers (with giant guns) and muzzled German Shepherds in Plaza Mayor. There were also quite a few police officers on horses. As mentioned previously, Madrid reminded me a lot of the US which was odd.

Would I re-visit?
An emphatic no. 

Sintra, Portugal

Sintra was also high on the list of places that I wanted to visit in Portugal. It is only 40 minutes away by train from Lisbon, making it the ideal day trip. Surprisingly, there are a lot of gum trees (research later told me that they were planted for pulpwood) which was unexpected and made me think of Australia. Except the trees were thriving in the conditions as they were quite tall.





First stop was the popular Quinta da Regaleira. It was quite nice walking around the palace and the gardens and, although I thoroughly enjoyed Lisbon, it was a lovely escape from the big smoke.




There are a lot of stray cats in Portugal.

One of the much talked about portions of Quinta da Regaleira was the grotto and more importantly the initiation well. Stone steps lined the wall of the well which led down to the very bottom and opened into underground tunnels and caves. It is said that it reflects the Divine Comedy by Dante and the nine circles of Hell (since there are nine platforms). In short, it was very very cool.






I was a little disappointed with the tunnels; I thought they would be more mysterious and cooler.



Next up was Moorish Castle. Well, technically I never reached the castle (or even saw it up close) due to certain issues. I reached 3/4 of the way from the bottom of the hill and it was a very easy - although steep - "hike".


Outer wall.



Overall Thoughts
Sintra was still quite nice, however I had high expectations and thought it would be a lot nicer than what it was. Nonetheless, it is definitely worth a trip from Lisbon. Lisbon is an incredible city and is one of my favourite places that I have visited thus far. The food, the culture and the people* make the city very enjoyable.

Would I re-visit?
There are too many places I would love to visit in the world. So no. But it is still definitely near the bottom of my "no" list, therefore may possibly be a yes.

* Every time I went to the supermarket, the cashier always refused (well initially at least) to break my "larger" notes which was infuriating. It was a decent sized supermarket so I knew that they were capable. Simply unwilling. For example, a shopping trip that totaled €6.something and I attempted to pay with €20 bill.

Lisbon

Portugal was one of my must-see countries on my trip, in particular Lisbon. It may also have something to do with seeing Carrie's (WishWishWish) frequent posts about the city, but something always drew me to Lisbon. I left Zürich at a ridiculous hour with the intention of arriving early and having a full day ahead. Shortly after we arrived at the hostel, the people at reception told us about the free walking tour (tips based) and off we went! The tour guide was so lovely! Very engaging and informative of course. We started off at a bar selling jinjingha and I tried some at 10.30am in the morning. Ha. I'm not a big fan of alcohol, but it tasted ridiculously sweet.

Ginjinha  is a portuguese liqueur made by infusing ginja berries, (sour cherry) in alcohol and adding sugar together with other ingredients. Ginjinha is served in a shot form with a piece of the fruit in the bottom of the cup.

Portuguese tart



Lisbon was amazing and so different to all the other cities I had visited in Europe. Sure, each city is different from the other, but after a while some do blend together. But Lisbon was radically different with the one carriage trams, super steep cobbled roads and flights of stairs one after the other. It was also 16°C during the day which was amazing.

I don't really like going on tips based tours, especially after reading about Sandeman's (see here). Partly because I don't know how much to pay, and I feel guilty if I don't leave something reasonable. At the conclusion of the tour, this American (from Virginia) was the first to ask how to pay, and then proceeded to pay the guide 1 Euro. One. Euro. Being a busybody, I saw that people all paid around 4-5 Euros. One. Euro. Still baffles me considering she was decked out in moderately expensive brands and seemed to quite enjoy the tour.






Sunset

The following day, we headed to the historic neighbourhood of Alfama. It was super hilly. The aim was to visit the flea market that was held every Saturday. I am always on the hunt for secondhand film cameras and I thought it might be the place to find some. There was one vendor who had a whole table of pretty awesome cameras, but I passed them up. They seemed to be the same price as on the bids on eBay which was disappointing.






Afterwards we headed to the other side of the river to see Christ the King. It took a while to get there since the wrong path was taken (a wrong path which meant a very steep road had to be taken). Does this look familiar?



It was inspired by the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and it was erected to express gratitude that the Portuguese were spared from WWII. 



Also the bridge is pretty much identical to the one in San Francisco due to colour and type. 


This sunset photo looks similar to the previous one, but it was insanely difficult to reach (I believe it was Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara). It required climbing up a hill that was almost at a gradient of 45°.

Schumann Concert at the Sydney Opera House

Two Monday's ago I went to a classical concert at the Sydney Opera House. It was my very first classical concert and with the student rush tickets, it was only $15 which I thought was reasonable. Of course, the seats weren't great (the very first row) however it is a classical concert after all.


Lemon, lime and bitters is my standard drink.




I wasn't familiar with Schumann's symphony 3 and 4 however they were pretty good (I did listen to them a few times before the concert). I much preferred No. 4. However, Jorg Widmann's piece was. Different. Here is a listen. It sounded like a dying cat being run over by a steam roller. Multiple times.

Film Photography

At any given point in time, I will always have at least 3 rolls of undeveloped film. Right now I have 3 rolls and two unfinished rolls in two cameras. The upside is that when I do receive the shots back, it's almost like a time capsule because they can be anywhere from 3 weeks to over a year old. I recently developed two of my disposable cameras. Oh my. These were cameras I had purchased at the Reject Shop for $5 each and perhaps it was just the ones I bought (although I did buy them at different times), but they are horrible. Super grainy (past the point of being even remotely nice) and a crazy amount of light leaks. Crazy amount. Nonetheless, it is still quite cool and I am still in love with film photography. That being said, I think I will go back to purchasing decent film for my cameras (maybe after I finish my 8 rolls of BW film though....).

These are the best 6 shots that I had developed.


This makes me a little sad as I think it would have been so much nicer without that horribly obnoxious light leak.

Switzerland Part 2

9th - 13th January 2015
For the remainder of my time in Switzerland, I visited Bern and Geneva. Spoiler alert, I wasn't a big fan of either city. Perhaps it was because my mind wasn't really into visiting those places or because I didn't think either one would trump the experiences from the previous days. A self fulfilling prophecy in a way I suppose. Like everything in Switzerland, the train from Zurich to Bern (and Bern to Geneva) was expensive. We bought each ticket at 25 CHF (35 AUD) per person for a 2 hour train journey and that was already on a supersaver sale. I was only in Bern for one day (arrived late in the evening and had a train to Geneva the following day at 7pm) and it was more than enough time for Bern. A hostel bed was around $40 AUD a night in a dorm and it was an ~interesting~ experience. Ergo the entire room just smelled of feet. Yum.

When I was on exchange, there was a Swiss guy who was from Bern and he believed that it was the most beautiful place in the entire world. I have to disagree. Whilst it was pretty, it definitely isn't near the top of my list. One of the good things about Switzerland is that if you stay at a hotel/hostel, you are provided with a free transport card for the duration of your stay. And that is how we ended up at Gellert Hill (which requires a funicular ride to get to the top and would otherwise have been ridiculously expensive).











It must have been the river that ran around the city, but it reminded me a lot of Columbus, Georgia. Although architecturally it was completely different.

A funny story. When we caught the train from Bern to Geneva, we got off at the airport train station instead of one in the centre of the city as originally planned since it was closer to our hotel. However, I didn't do enough research and it didn't cross my mind that highways/ motorways don't exactly have pedestrian crossings. Naturally, the train station was on one side of the highway and our hotel was on the other side. Apparently I'm a little reckless and I did consider crossing the 6 lane highway. But we didn't.  A twenty minute walk later (including a 200m stretch in practically pitch black parkland) and we made it the hotel. Thankfully.

The only reason for visiting Geneva was for CERN and I am not a science person by any means and found the guided tour so. incredibly. boring. It was also weird to suddenly be hearing French again (since the other places in Switzerland spoke Swiss-German).

Overall Thoughts
Switzerland was even prettier than what I had imagined. It was also shockingly expensive and I am from Sydney, a very expensive place to live in. But also, the Swiss Franc is doing amazingly well.  For the duration of our trip in Switzerland, we didn't eat hot food since we were just eating out of the supermarket. Migros was really nice and the salads and pastries, although expensive (similar to food court prices), were super super tasty and of quite good quality! It's hard for me to comment on Switzerland as a whole, because it included both amazing moments and also quite horrible moments too.

Would I re-visit?
Yes. But only in the warmer months for hiking.