Bonjour! Hola!

It's only been 9 days but it feels like an awfully long time since I last penned any notes within this space.

It feels a little surreal right now. To be sitting on a bed with lovely flowery sheets and with Spanish programmes running on TV. Yeps, I'm in Barcelona right now.

The weather's rather cool here. Bright and sunny but still cooling with occassional winds blowing. That's temperate weather for you. It's doing good for my skin definitely. The oil glands are not in overdrive. :)

K & I flew off on the night of the 20th of September. Paris was our first stop, my second time there and his first. We did the usual rounds of places and touristy hotspots like the Musee du Louvre and Notre-Dame Cathedral. The weather was cold. K loved it but I was feeling quite grumpy at times haha. For a person used to being in a 30C environment, 18C suddenly felt quite cold. ;p The mornings and evenings were especially cold.

Meals were simple. Sandwiches and baguettes filled our days. Oh yes, and crepes too! Lovely lovely crepes! Made fresh on the spot right in front of you, wrapped up steaming hot in foil or paper and passed right into your waiting hands. These were the more reasonably priced meals we could think of haha. Such is the life of a weaker currency. (It's about 1 euro to 2.08 SGD by the way.) A baguette cost about 3.90 to 5 euro. Crepes were usually about 3-plus euro.

From Paris, we also spent some time visited outskirt towns like Fontainebleau (where INSEAD is situated) and the Versailles area.

We bid farewell to Paris after about 3 nights and trundled our way on a high-speed train to Nice. I'd never been on a train before (unless you count the MRT haha). It was a nice experience watching the fields, terrains, hills, mountains, roads, buildings go past you in more than a jiffy. And it felt nice to have K sitting by my side. :)

Nice was about 4 hours from Paris. It was much warmer there, much to my delight. The days were absolutley sunny and I was glad I brought my shades and sunscreen. (Yes, I have taken to using sunscreen. For those whose mouth are agape right now, that's a whole story on its own.)

Anyway, yes, Nice was so sunny I had a tanline running straight across my chest from wearing a tube. Haha. The place was lovely. Stunning stunning views of the whole town and the sea too from a hilly tourist spot called the Colline du Chateau. We visited a monastery on top of another hilly area called the Cimiez Hills. Out of the numerous cathedrals we'd seen, that was my favourite. I spent some time sending silent prayers to Mother Mary and Jesus, some on behalf of Granny.

Being a coastal town, Nice's beaches were almost always populated with hordes of people tanning. Topless men (and ladies) dotted the sandy beaches. K was complaining of old sagging titties hanging (pun intended) around the area. Anyway, the waters were so nice! A blue-green aqua colour reflecting slivers of sunlight...I've never ever seen blue coastal waters. Those we have in SG are just um, brown? Or grey?

The architecture in Nice was pretty. Very very pretty. For lack of a better word. Especially in the section of Nice called Vieux-Nice (Old Nice). Old alleyways, criss-crossing each other, cobbled streets, wooden doors with brass or cast-iron locks and knobs. Small little verandahs cordoned by iron railings, some with vines trailing through them or creeping up the brick walls.

Quaint bistros and restaurants all along the streets and nestled in quiet corners. Old folks walking their dogs or just sitting around. People enjoying a cuppa with their pals at one of the ubiquitous cafes. There was just this huge iota of charm and cosiness oozing from that part of town. I loved the place! :)

We spent half a day over in Monaco, which was about an hour's ride away from Nice by bus. Monaco is technically a country on its own. And all I can say is that it's filled with rich people haha. The number of expensive cars we saw was horrendous! Haha...loads of BMWs, Rolls-Royces, Aston Martins, Mercedes, Maseratis, Ferraris, Porsches, blah blah blah...

From Nice, our poor butts spent another 8 hours on an old train to go into Barcelona, with an hour's stopover in Montpeiller, a town in the south of France. Our first day was spent shopping haha. We had the intention of looking for lunch at McDonald's because we saw it on the map. Somehow, we stumbled across a huge shopping area. Streets and streets of shops. I know some people who would go berserk in such a place haha. We spent quite awhile in H&M (H&M is to Europe what Uniqlo is to Japan, but of better fashion and higher quality), Mango and Zara just to name a few shops.

We've tried out paellas and fidueas and will be trying out a tapas meal tomorrow. :) yum yum.

We've got about 2 more days here before we haul our butts back to dear old Paris where we'll be hitting the streets of Champs-Elysees and Le Marais, climbing up the Eiffel Tower, traversing the old corridors of the Basilic Sacre-Coeur cathedral and riding in a boat down the La Seine river.

Till here for now...:) It is 1040pm in Barcelona. 440am in SG.