will i am's delayed diary

Breakfast at Tryp Apolo was not disappointing with a wide range of cold cuts, breads and cheeses. Met our local guide Gonzalos at the lobby. He was a funny and chatty fellow who had a decent Malay vocabulary. He took us on a walking tour of the old city walls, Columbus Monument, Maritime Museum and Ramblas de Mar, retracing our steps the night before. From the confines of the bus, we also spied Las Arenas, an old bullfighting ring turned shopping mall. Bullfights were banned in 2011, effectively ending 600 years of history. The Black Madonna of Montserrat ( patron saint of Catalonia ) was our first appointment of the day. Traveled 60 KM out to the mountains where we took the Aeri cable car up to the Benedictine monastery in the mountains. According to Gonzalos, the cable car was built by the Germans. He joked that the Spanish let the Germans work hard while the Spaniards had la siesta ( afternoon nap ). For some reason, the mountains of Montserrat has a peculiar shap...

Magic Square , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Early the next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed although we were quite tired. All in the name of beating the queue at Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família . However, we still had to line up for an hour in the cold. :S. Ate breakfast in the queue-- bought an on over-priced panini with way too much coriander flakes. We took turns standing. One would stay while the other would go exploring around the exterior. Much construction was still ongoing after more than a century. The spires were flanked by cranes and one can see the difference between new stone and weathered stone. Once the line started moving, we got in rather quickly. The entrance was through the Passion Façade, a work by Josep Maria Subirachs. Depicts the Passion of the Christ through the use of "bare-bone" sculptures with rigid and angular lines. I didn't quite like it. Inside, I was awed by the sheer size of the nave. Gigantic columns rose ...

St. George's Day , a photo by williamnyk on Flickr. On our third day in Spain, we visited the hospital. Don't worry, it wasn't due to some sex-related accident the night before. Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau was actually a fully-functioning hospital until mid-2009, but it's now closed for restoration. Sant Pau means Saint Paul. Nothing to do with char siew pau , k? Lluís Domènech i Montaner designed the place and his idea behind the breathtaking complex is that the beauty of its surroundings would help patients to recover quicker. With the closure, we had only access to a small fraction. The interiors were off-limits except for one building that housed an expo-- "9 Conditions for a World Without Poverty". Truth be told, the place looks like a small village with the buildings resembling churches rather than hospital blocks. Lucky for us, the cathedral inside the hospital grounds was open. A small bunch of octogenerians were busy setting up the plac...