Jour 98 - "No! You Can't Have Paella! :))"

November 26th, Saturday

So sorry I wasn't able to take a picture of our hostel but the place was pretty awesome! Clean :) And it's just around 11EUR per night! :D

At the train...

Our first stop was to go to Retiro Park. 

But before the park, we saw a book flea market so we passed by here first. 

Aaaw cute! Little prince in Spanish!

HAHAHAHA. Eeew

The weather was perfect! It was really nice strolling around the park :) 

The fasyon people :))

We went inside Palacio de Cristal.

OMG. Absolutely stunning! Doesn't it look like heaven? :P

We also saw Monument to Alfonso XII. 

Kwi and crazy antics :))

We passed by a convenient store and saw this! :)) Why hello Filipinos!

After this, we went to Gran Via and start a grand shopping. Er. My wallet started to die a slow death. Lefties. Pull and Bear. Zara. Bershka. You name it. Oh gosh. Shopping in Spain is really amazingly cheaper compared to the other EU countries. 

For our late lunch, we ate in this place. I saw this in a blog and they mentioned that the food here is pretty good and the prices are not bad.

We were the first ones to enter the restaurant because we were 30 minutes too early before the store opened :))

Renan ordered this with his burger :)

Kwi and I split two dishes - this one is Argentinian steak.

And this one is boneless suckling pig or cuchinillo <3

We went back to Gran Via to continue our shopping galore. And by 18:00, my wallet officially died. It was a very bloody death for it had to go through so many stores! :))

Aira had an important game to watch! Yes, she's the biggest football fan out of the group. 

For dinner, we wanted to check out the best hidden bar in Madrid. Well, that's according to the blog I saw in the internet. It's so secret that you'd have to ring the doorbell in order to get inside :))

We were lucky to get a seat because we got there early. After a couple of minutes, a lot more people came in :P This restaurant bar is where the locals go. I didn't see any sight of foreigners! I wasn't really hungry so I just got paella and beer. I still prefer the paella in Manila.

Renan was so funny! He didn't know that he ordered two types of potato dishes! :)) He got patatas bravas and 

huevos espanyol (an omelet with potatoes inside) :P

The guy beside Kwi was the waiter that served us! Haha. It seemed like he was flirting with Kwi! Hihi. When Kwi saw my paella, she wanted to order as well. But the waiter told Kwi that she can't have paella :)))) Apparently, the paella that I ate was free! :))

Kwi's lamb took forever! But it was good :)

xx

Jour 97 - "Ang Maya, Kinakain Ba?" -- Off to Madrid!

November 25th, Friday

Aira, Sam and I could have gotten the earlier plane to Madrid. Renan and Kwi went ahead of us. Anyway, here's us at the Charleroi Airport. Super early birds! :))

We got to the center of Madrid around 23:30 already :| When we got out of the train station, we were shocked that so many people were still awake at that hour! Apparently, the Spanish are nocturnal. Our hostel was located near the bars so I felt so funny lugging our suitcases just to get to the hostel. Haha!

Kwi and Renan waited for us to get to Madrid cause I told them that we'll be "partying" tonight. :)) We didn't party cause we were all just hungry. Well, Kwi looked really hungry! We entered the first cervercia that was still open and Kwi and I split this. 

I guess this is a typical raciones. 

We went to the famous churros place for our past midnight snack!

YUM!

xx

Jour 96 - Balikbayan 101

November 24th, Thursday

Kwi and I have been planning on bringing our things to Tita Juliet because the Christmas rush. If you don't really know me, you wouldn't know how serious my family is when it comes to balikbayan packing, my dad most especially. He would always make time to fix the box because as he would always say, "You pay for the box, not the weight." So every year, when we're in San Francisco we always make sure that our boxes are really stuff with things! I'm pretty sure the pick-up service always dreads it when it's time for them to pick our boxes already. Our boxes are really really heavy!

So after class, Kwi and I decided to go to Tita Juliet's for bring things there already. 

We weren't so much productive as I expected because we forgot to bring tape :| FAIL. So we just had to fix our little boxes that contained breakables. I'll have to come back on Monday, after my Madrid trip, start packing them all. Ugh, I hate packing. It always reminds me how fast time flies. Super mixed feelings with my last month here! :s

xx

Jour 95 - Paris, avec les Lumieres!

November 23rd, Wednesday

Since I haven't gone to the Louvre, I decided to go to Paris (again, yes there's just so much to do in Paris) but this time around by myself. Kwi went to Paris as well but she had a connecting train to Le Havre. 

I followed Rick Steves' guide for France. I passed through the underground mall of the Louvre and luckily I didn't have to fall in line. I heard Wednesday is always a busy day but I was so lucky! There was no hassle at all! :)

Venus de Milo

Of course, the ever famous Mona Lisa.

There are two things I don't really like when traveling alone - you can't share the experience with someone, and no one can take your picture (well, excluding the fact that I can just ask a stranger to take my picture). 

The good thing about traveling alone though is that you can travel at your own pace :)

Haha! I had to take a picture of myself - a reminder that I went inside the Louvre! :))

I was done in about 2 hours :)

I asked a random kind-looking person to take my picture. I was trying to tell her that I wanted a photo that would give the illusion that I was holding the tower but haha! She ain't good :)) Oh well, at least this picture is pretty decent already.

I went to Jardin du Tuileries to chill and relax and read my case study for tomorrow's presentation. 

I noticed a ferris wheel right in front of it!

After an hour, I called up Chiara and asked if I could hang out with her for the rest of the day. :) I went to Maica's flat.

It was Carlos' last day here in Paris (and in Europe) so Mapa met up with us. Aaaw, I'm kinda jealous that Carlos left already! I can already feel the air of Christmas so I'm itching to go home! :P

We all went inside the perfume museum in Paris. Oh yey! Free entrance :)) I couldn't take pictures though of the place. Though, good thing we had a guide! She was so informative that I found out how French women were before. Oh I have side kwento! I found out that French women used to put beauty marks (a.k.a. moles) on their face as a sign of their status. Our guide even showed us how they look like :)) A girl could be single, married, or taken as of the moment. Fascinating stuff I tell you!

At the end of the tour, our guide led us to their shop where we got to smell different kinds of scents. OMG, super funny! The guys looked so bored after sniffing two scents! :)) Chiara and Maica fell in love with the coconut scented perfume that they both got one each :)

We went around Champs cause Carlos wanted to check out a sneaker store. Went back to Maica's flat for dinner, then went back to Champs (this time, Kwi went back to Paris already) and we checked out the Christmas market! :)

Oh and we rode the Ferris Wheel! :)

A month to go before I say goodbye to my random trips in Paris :( / :)

xx