Around and in Barcelona

Tibidabo

2009-06-08T03:37:00.000-07:00

So this week end I realised I only had one month left in Barcelona and I still have a lot of things to check out. So I went to Mount Tibidabo on Saturday where you can get the best view of the whole city.

It's also a theme park with stuff for children but if you go down a bit there are lots of attractions like rollercoasters, pirate boats, water attractions, fear house... It was absolutely great !

The entry is 25 euros but it's totally worth it especially since the summer is here and there wasn't many people !

You can go by bus, by metro and then tramway, or by car of course.

Euro Trip - the movie

2009-06-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

You probably all know this movie: Euro Trip.
It's kinda stupid, but reaaaally funny and i have to say it made me wanna go on my trip right now !

Here's the trailer

Lyon

2009-05-27T04:01:00.000-07:00

Although I was born in Paris and I lived in Normandy for a while, I spent most of my life in Lyon, one of the biggest cities of France.

La place Bellecour. City Centre.

And I have to say I love it there. There are two rivers joining each other and in the middle there's the city centre with all the shops, cinemas, clubs, bars etc.

Rue Mercière. Restarants street.

The arquitecture is great and it's not as big as Paris so it's pretty nice to live there.
The city has a very rich history since the Middle-Age and the quality of life is pretty high with nice weather in the summer and cold winters.

Typical stairs

Montée de Fourvière (Basilic)

The Old town (Vieux Lyon), shaped during the Renaissance, is very typical with gastronomic restaurants and tiny paved streets.

Rue du Vieux Lyon

I'm going back there to see my family tomorrow for a few days. These pics are from the internet but I'll take photos during my trip.

If I ever live in France, it'd be Lyon or nothing...

Tourist Fever

2009-05-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

Just to say that it's great to go visit new places and stuff and that's it's a bit easy to make fun of the tourists with their nice little hat and their camera, but sometimes, they -we?- really do look like idiots.

Euro Trip #4

2009-05-19T02:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, another update on our trip. We booked our tickets back to France already (I really can't imagine one day it'll be over...) because after the festival we wanted to make sure we'd get a seat on a train or bus instead of being stuck there with thousands of other exhausted and drunk poor fellas.
BUT the plane ticket from Budapest to Lyon was 174 euros... yeah...
So instead we booked a bus to Rome, it was like 27 euros with the Hungarian Eurolines, Volánbusz, and then we booked a plane ticket from Rome to Lyon, which was approximatively 70 euros, with Easy Jet. So we're not even gonna pay 100 euros and we'll get to spend a day in Rome !!
I've lived in Lyon for years, and it's just next to the Alps, but I've never been to Italy... yet !!
So I think it'll be a nice way to end the trip, and get some rest before our parents see us again...

Euro Trip #3

2009-05-15T06:37:00.000-07:00

So G. and I are still planning our eurotrip. This post is dedicated to the Sziget festival. I just found out the bands that are gonna perform and it's gonna be awesome !!!!!

Some of them I know, others that I don't. But the bands I'm most excited to see are The Prodigy, The Offspring, Placebo, Fatboy Slim, the Kills...
I can't wait !!!
Plus, 8 days of festival... we'll have plenty of time to visit the city and die from the heat during our nap... well, it however seems unlikely that we're gonna get any sleep... Anyway, it doesn't matter, I'm so looking forward to seeing the Offspring and the Prodigy !
I've already seen Placebo twice and I'm not such a great fan anymore, and I've seen the Subways too...
Also, what I'm curious to see is Nouvelle Vague, a French band which sings covers in English and French. They sound pretty nice.

Here's the list, so far:

08001, Armin van Buuren, Backyard Babies, Birdy Nam Nam, Blasted Mechanism, Bloc Party, Calexico, Coldcut, De Staat, Die Toten Hosen, Disco Ensemble, Donots, Editors, Eric Prydz, Expatriate, Faith No More, Fatboy Slim, Figli Di Madre Ignota, Guajiro Mirabal (Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club), Gwar, Haydamaky, IAMX, Jesus Ramos (Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club), Klaxons, Life of Agony, Lily Allen, Manic Street Preachers, Manuel Galbán (Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club), Matatu, Maxïmo Park, Miloopa, Paul Oakenfold, Pendulum, Pete Tong, Placebo, Primal Scream, Ska-P, Snow Patrol, So Kalmery, Speed Caravan, Squarepusher, Tankcsapda, The Offspring, The Prodigy, The Subways, The Ting Tings, Tiken Jah Fakoly, Tricky, Turbonegro, White Lies

It's Manchester mate

2009-05-14T02:10:00.000-07:00

I've just found this really fun website that promotes tourism in Great Britain. It's really well made and there's a lot of useful infos as well as nice graphics.

It made me think of Manchester where I lived for 8 months.

People usually have prejudices when they think about Manchester and think grey, industrial, cold... Well, it is bloody cold and rainy, but the city is big and alive. The city centre is a mix of old buildings and new ones, as a lot of them were destroyed by an IRA attack almost 15 years ago. There are a lot of bars and shops and millions of buses that make transportation real easy. Personally, I really liked the Printworks with its bars and cinema and Canal Street, the gay district that has the best clubs.

I used to go to class at Manchester University with a group of foreigners learning English like me. It was a lot of fun and the teacher was great. The university is huge and there are uni buildings all over the city, hence a high number of students and thus a great number of activities, lots of fun and nice people from everywhere. I took CAE classes (Certificate in Advanced English), it's like 4 months of classes and an exam in June. You can also take the CFE (first) and CPE (proficiency) almost everywhere in the world.

I didn't live in the city centre because of the prices, which are a bit high but still ok, still I couldn't afford it so I shared a house in Rusholme the Pakistani district. The house was nice and there were lots of restaurants all around, and magic buses that take you to the centre in 10 minutes for 3 pounds a week.

I strongly recommend you go visit this city because I know I'm dying to go back !

I Amsterdam

2009-05-05T01:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was thinking of the crazy trips I took and which made my parents crazy ahah and one of the best was Amsterdam for New Year's Eve last year.
My best friend G. and I wanted to do something different, original. So we looked on the Internet and found this "package" return-way to Amsterdam.

The plan was to get on the bus on Dec, 30th in the afternoon, get to Amsterdam real early in the morning on 31st, spend the whole day and the whole night there and take the coach back on Jan, 1st at 6 a.m.
And the fact that I was leaving for Barcelona on Jan, 2nd didn't scare me at all...
So that's what we did. We put on our big coats and our backpack and went North.
We actually met some guys in the bus and spent the day with them.

We got there at like 7 or 8 am, it was already -10 degrees or something like this.
So first step, breakfast in a tiny shop, chocolate and milk and pancakes and jam. Really nice.
Then we started wandering around, getting some landmarks.
Of course we had to go to a coffeeshop, it's part of the tour !
Then we went to some kind of museum, can't really remember that part, wonder why...

We had a nice walk following the river and the boats, had a quick look in the sex museum, which was sometimes fun, some other times pretty disturbing...

At night we spent quite a while in a coffeeshop or two and then we went to see the fireworks on Dam Square. It was crazy. People everywhere. Noise. Alcohol and bottles on the floor. People running and screaming everywhere.

Then we went on a search for a good bar to finish the night.
We ended up in a nice big pub where a concert was taking place. That's how I discovered the Romanian band Olly de Quartz. They did covers but they have plenty of songs they wrote themselves (you can listen to them on their myspace). So we danced and drank until 5 a.m.
Unfortunately we had to go back to the coach for our 13 hours on the road. Thankfully a bit of space cake made our trip go much faster !

Anyways, this trip to Amsterdam was totally crazy. The city is really pretty and there are lots of things to do. Everyone should go visit it at least once !

Euro Trip #2

2009-04-28T01:41:00.000-07:00

Some news about my little Euro trip with bff G. !
Yesterday we booked our tickets from Munich to Berlin (doesn't it remind you of a song?) and from Berlin to Prague !!! The trip is getting more and more real... We'll travel by coach of course, coz we'd rather get our asses sore than pay a few more euros...
We booked the first trip on this website https://www.berlinlinienbus.de/ (and yeah you can change the language on the top right corner...). So we'll be on the road for 8 or 9 hours, for 33 euros, which is ok, but we were able to get a promotion because we booked it pretty early.

the fall of the Berlin wall

Then we booked our coach ticket to Prague on this website http://www.touring.de/. It's Eurolines so it's pretty safe. Besides, we only paid 33 euros again. This time we'll be on the road for more or less 5 hours, from 7 a.m...
Then we might stay in a youth hostel or maybe a friend of mine will be able to welcome us for these 3 days. Anyways, I've already been to Prague twice but I can't wait to go back, I love this city so much !!! The spirit, the people, the cold and the warmth at the same time, the gothic mind. It's like a more elegant Barcelona, it's not so obvisouly crazy, but you can feel the rum running in the veins of Czech people...

Muzeum - The centre of Prague City

Coming Next...
We should book our tickets to Vienna soon, but we still don't know exactly what we're gonna see there, so we still have to ask around for the best places to go...

Art in Barcelona

2009-04-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

Barcelona's a crazy city. Lots of people. Drugs. Sex. Music. In every corner.

And/Hence the level of creativity is really high. You can see expressions of it in every street.
I don't know, maybe people feel more allowed to express themselves, to wander in life, feel free, do what they want, spend the day at the beach, drink and sing all night... instead of focusing on getting an important job and starting a family. And of course I like it. Almost everybody's attracted to the charms of this life. It can be dangerous. Or not.
Here's Dr Case's website barcelonastreetart, he does street art like this:

Sans oublier les mythiques space invaders...

Sant Jordi Day

2009-04-23T03:15:00.000-07:00

Today is April, 23rd. A pretty big day in Catalunya and Spain in general.
Today people celebrate the death of San Jorge, a Roman soldier who became a martyr and then a Christian Saint, and eventually the patron saint of Aragon and Catalunya. So in order to comemorate this day, men usually give one rose to their girlfriend, mother, friend...
Besides, in 1996, the Unesco declared this day as the International day of the book. That's why nowadays the custom is to give a book with a rose to family and friends.
Although San Jorge is the patron saint of only two Spanish regions, people usually do it in many regions of Spain, and I remember being given a rose and a book when I was in Madrid.
So today at the office all the girls were happy to be given a rose by the boss and some of our colleagues. Always a nice surprise :)

Easter trip to Southern Catalunya

2009-04-15T01:38:00.000-07:00

Willing to spend my Easter vacation outside Barcelona, my friends and I decided to accept a friend's invitation to spend 3 days at her parents' (huge) house in Torredembarra, a village next to Tarragona (1h10 minutes South of Barcelona by train).
Despite a somewhat lunatic weather, we were able to appreciate the fresh air, the sea, the great view from the moutains that board the sea, little hidden beaches.
We were also able to witness an Easter procession in Tarragona, which looked a bit... "dusty" to me, but it's always nice to see cultural habits in live.
Finally it was refreshing to stay at a place where everybody knew each other and have a drink with all the youth of Torredembarra in small typical and very welcoming bars (say that to all the tequila shots we were given...).

So 3 days that made me forget the craziness of Barcelona, the tourists, the metro, the work...

arriba es un plato de fideua, comida típica de esta región... (fideos, mariscos...)

La Rambla de Tarragona...

2009 Summer Music Festivals

2009-04-08T09:17:00.001-07:00

Festivals are one of the best thing summer brings and European countries offer a wide range of musical events that are either famous worldwide or locally popular, and their concepts are often very original.

Most famous festivals are very popular, that's why it's time to start thinking about buying your tickets!

Most of them last 3 or 4 days and cost between 120 euros and 170 euros with camping included.

Here is a little list of the most popular festivals in Europe:

The Roksilde festival in Denmark. June. Lasts 4 days. Celebrated every year since 1971.
The Oxegen festival in Dublin.early July. 3 days. This year: Razorlight, Kings of Leon, Killers...
The Pukkelpop festival in Belgium. Mid-August. 3 days. This year: Arctic monkeys, N.E.R.D, the Offspring...
T in the Park in Scotland. July 10-12. This year: Killers, Blur, Nick Cave and the bad seeds...
The Benicássim festival in Spain. July 17-20. Kings of Leon, Oasis, Franz Ferdinand...
The Sziget festival in Budapest. From August 10th. 8 days (YES!!!) it's the same price as the other 3 or 4-day-festivals. Last year, Metallica opened the festival.
...
But hurry up because some of them are already sold out!

Info about other festivals here.

When the web helps you travel

2009-04-08T02:35:00.000-07:00

Here are two websites which can be pretty useful if you want to discover the world !

The first one is Erasmusu. It's pretty new but I can see it growing very fast. It's a social network for Erasmus students (or other programs). So you can ask questions about the places you wanna see or live in, make contacts, uploads photos etc.
For now you can ask for an invitation here.

Another useful website is Couch Surfing. Accomodation is often the most expensive feature of a trip, especially if you don't know anyone and have to pay for a hotel. With CS, you can contact people who live in the city you want to visit and if you get along after a little exchange of messages, they'll welcome you to sleep on their couch, and vice versa of course. I once welcomed a British guy who lived in Germany for a couple of nights, he cooked for me and slept on the couch, and it was lots of fun sharing our travelling experiences etc.
So you can save a lot of money and get to know very interesting people. Of course the website's totally free.

Euro Trip #1

2009-04-07T05:10:00.000-07:00

Euro trips are very popular ideas, especially when you're under 25.
Well, I have planned to do a tour of Europe this summer with my best friend and I have to say that planning it is almost as much fun as actually doing it, almost.
The red line you can see on the map is our itinerary. Ok it's not a perfect circle mais we really thought this through, and according to the time we've got, ie one month, it should be doable: Paris, Munich, maybe Berlin if we have time, Vienna and other cities in Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Budapest for the Sziget Festival (for 8 awesome and crazy days!!) and finally maybe Florence in Italy as it's almost on our way back to Lyon.
Home sweet home.
We thought about paying for an Inter Rail pass, but it's worth 400 euros and we're not gonna take the train everytime we move. However, I heard it's possible to get the same kind of pass but for one country. For example, we could visit the whole of Austria with a pass that'd be limited to this country. I'll keep on looking and tell you more about it soon.

As far as our budget is concerned, well it's kinda limited. We figured the most expensive would be transportation. So we agreed we would take the bus as much as possible, or cheap trains. About accomodation, we settled for cheap and crappy hostals, but I know they're sometimes full, so I guess we'll improvise. Plus it'll be summer so if we have to sleep on the beach of Croatia, whatever... Of course, we'll be careful. Going on a trip like this thinking everybody's nice in a perfect world is a mistake, but still, it has to be an adventure and planning everything little thing can take much of the fun away...

So far, we bought our tickets for the festival as it's one of the most famous festivals of the world, we had to get them pretty early, and we've just booked our train tickets to Paris and plane tickets for Munich. We didn't really want to go to Paris first, but taking the plane from there was cheaper than a flight from Lyon to Munich.

So I'll keep you posted about our trip.

Praha

2009-04-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos I took in Prague. I've been there a few times and I completely fell in love with the city. I'm not a big fan of visiting an endless list of museums nor going in every church, but I have to say that the Castle of Prague is amazing. People used to live inside the walls in tiny houses and most of them are exactly the same as they were in the Middle-Age. And the St Vitus cathedral is quite majestic. I also love observing the people and getting to know them is the best way to learn and understand the country's culture. Czech people may be a bit shy at first but once you get to know them, they're surprisingly kind and warm-hearted.

Intro

2009-04-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

hi everyone.
Ok so let's just briefly explain why I created this blog.
I'm a 21-year-old French student from Lyon. I study International Relations at the moment, that's why I get to travel a lot and that's a lot of fun! I'm currently living in Barcelona, and I realised it's the perfect place to take photos. The city has a real personality and wonderful landscapes.The city and its people really inspired me, that's why I dedicate this blog to the Catalan capital.
Throughout my trips I got to really enjoy taking pictures. Sometimes it shows things you can't see with your own eyes. A feeling. A story.
Of course I'm far from being a professional, but as long as one gets pleasure out of something, it's worth it, isnt't it ?