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...

Sunday was another long day of traveling. Left Madrid early to travel to Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon. As with the last long distance trip, our driver made the compulsory comfort stop and all of the aunties did group taichi in front of the cafe. All the ang mohs there were astonished. Continued our journey and passed by a lot of rapeseed fields and at one mountainous region, the whole area was covered with wind turbines. Before long, we arrived at Zaragoza. The bus stopped at Iglesia Parroquial de Santiago el Mayor, a beautiful church with a wooden sculpture of Jesus at the column and Our Lady of Sorrows. However, there was some mix up. Turns out that they had no chapel that we could use and the parish priest couldn't speak a word of English. He went around asking for a translator among the parishioners and luckily we found a lady who was willing to help. We were directed to a nearby church that is attached to a hospital, called Iglesia Del Hospital De Nost...

Breakfast buffet at Marriott was quite good with a wide selection of fruits, pastries, cold cuts and cheeses. Of course they had the usual hamster food station as well. And the walls were lined with Nespresso machines. A local guide was arranged for our tour of Toledo and Madrid. Her name was Goncha and she met us at the hotel. Started out towards Toledo which was about an hour out of town, passing through many furniture factories and olive orchards. She spoke in a lazy, slurred manner prompting many of us to have an early siesta (nap) . Toledo was the capital of Spain approximately 1000 years ago before the nobility moved to Madrid. The old city is unique because it was a community of Christians, Muslims and Jews. But that changed during the Spanish Reconquest when Catholicism was proclaimed as the official religion and those of other faiths were asked to convert lest they be expelled. In 1986, Toledo was declared a UNESCO heritage site for its cultural and monumental heritage. B...