Sinful Nights of Alcohol

Before I start, I would like to truthfully deny something that was posted by this blogger as stated below .. haha

to ask for sexual favours, leave a comment
here :P

By the way, the here links to travelfiles.blogspot.com which happens to be the blog you're at now. I would nonetheless give anyone sexual favours if asked but I don't think anyone would want anything like that from me. So yeah, thanks for the promiscous publicity blogger .. haha

However, I would like to point out that sexual desires may without doubt be easily appeased here in europe. Though not in spain, let's remind ourselves of the fact that prostitution is legal in germany, holland and greece. No optical illusions involved here. All you sexually deprived ones out there may very well rush to the nearest travel agent to book yourself on the next flight to amsterdam.

Prostitution may not be legal here in spain but the funny thing is that there's like free porn on tv. Makes it sound like japan. I had not known of this till it was pointed out by no one but my gila mum.

How she discovered it, i'm not so sure as they only start showing them sometime after midnight. I mean its not all porn .. some still show normal tv and no, I am not hooked on porn but I have come across them while flipping channels. So for porno freaks, madrid it is for you ..

Look at what was featured on one of the bus stop advertisement columns. If there was a similar ad in kl, the government would be fuming while the MPs would be debating it all day in the Dewan Rakyat. Proves how open europe is.

Forgetting everything sexually related, we now come to the original topic of alcohol.

Let me first mention that alcohol mostly wine and beer is almost dirt cheap here in spain. My mum even substitutes water with white wine when cooking certain dishes. The proff is as shown above. Only 0.75 euros per bottle of wine. The trick is that the cheaper wines generally don't taste as good as the more expensive ones. However, it's still alcohol-ish and well tastes like wine. An unexperienced cina pek won't even notice. Still purple corour mah ! wtv

That's one of the huge rows of wines you can find at the local supermarket here. That's just like one rack. Let's say in total you find triple the amount of alcohol seen above there of all kinds of prices.

As such, I've been all kinds of I would say cocktails prepared by my mum without the knowledge of my step-dad of course. I credit my parents who exposed me to alcohol with beer at first when I was young and of course my mum for developing my taste in it. I sound like I'm addicted to it ..

I'm including minor instructions too so you all out there can try it yourself. Those of you who drink will like it.

1st Night - Sangria

Sangria is like some authentically Spanish drink. This is a mixture of many kinds of fruit which I suppose are mainly citrus fruits together with like red wine and honey . They just ferment it next till it becomes alcoholishly wine-like.

This you probably can't make yourself. It's however sold in like cartons here in any supermarket. I would recommend the one above, Don Simon as it's one of the best in the market though you could have better at Botin. It's a lil different from wine. Since it has a mixture of fruits, it tastes more sweet than normal wine. Fruity aroma and taste ..

2nd Night - Bacardi Coke

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Bacardi Coke ain't exactly my favourite but it's still nice. Bacardi with a hint of coke. Simply add like 1/4 parts of bacardi and 3/4 parts of coke in any cup of your choice. It looks pretty much like a cup of coke but you'll know when you taste it. Worth a try. I would recommend using normal coke although we had used diet coke. Throw in two ice cubes.

3rd Night - Gin Tonic

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Gin tonic is one conconction known to many. Making it is the same as bacardi coke just that the 1/4 part should be gin while the other 3/4 should be tonic water. Place together a few slices of lemon to kind of give it slight flavouring. Like how you add strawberries into water so do not even bother squeezing the lemons.

It may however get a tad too strong for the unexperienced few. Slight headaches included but rest assured you'll get a good nights sleep. Strangely, this is what's experienced by my mum, not some weak drinker but not me. Maybe its because I'm still young .. perasan.

I would recommend using Gordon's London Dry Gin and Schweppes tonic water. Best of its kind. We used the Caprabo tonic water since we ran out of Schweppes. Caprabo's the supermarket I've blogged about and their tonic water ain't that bad.

4th Night - "Screwdriver"

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This one here is my personal favourite. Nothing complicated nor scary here as it seems to sound. "Screwdriver" as told by my mum is just the name given to this drink by the spanish. It's generally carbonated orange juice mixed with vodka. For this drink, you generally add the amount of vodka you can bear with and just fill with the orange.

Absolut Vodka as many know would be the best to use. It's sad we don't have fanta in kl. All we have to substitute it in kl is F&N Orange .. yucks. Even orangina which is no longer on the market tasted better. F&N's one just tastes like food colouring completely. This one is seriously worth trying. It won't be as strong as the others. Sadly, vodka just isn't cheap in most parts of the world.

I've even a few times added orange fruit in it together simply giving it a silly name such as "Orange Surprise"! lamenya ..

5th Night - Shandy

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I'm quite sure that the first thought that came in my mind upon seeing the word shandy would be a can of ready-made Anglia shandy. Not that Anglia shandy sucks or anything but why not mix your own equally delicious shandy since shandy esentially is just beer with lemonade. It is best that you use a glass like above for shandy. It's ok to have more.

The way we prepared it may be different from the actual way but it's still ok. Just pour half a can of beer and equally add lemonade preferably carbonated. Weak drinkers and first-timers can easily opt for this. I still remembered how happy I was drinking shandy during the pangkor trip .. siau.

Sinful or not ? It's up to you. So, grab hold of some alcohol when you can .. As I'm ending this post, I'm sipping a glass of rose wine produced by Familia Torres from Catalunya. Makes me wonder whether Fernando Torres is realeted to this Familia Torres ?

-adios y hasta luego-

I´m Very Much Alive

Time has been passing real fast this week. As of now, it's already been a week since the school holidays started. As for me, it´s been two weeks. Reason is that I had voluntarily took the last week of school off. If you know me well, you'll know that I'm know in the country I love most, Spain. Beautiful .. sunny spain.

As said of the title of this post, i'm doing fine here. Adjusting to time was fast and I absolutly love the cold climate. It's still autumn now and it's 7 hours behind kl here. Temperature today is about 14 degrees celcius. It's been raining though almost every day this week. Sorry for my long absence from blogging.

I'm just enjoying everything out here and there's only one computer here to be shared by everyone at home here. My step-dad's been sick this week so he's not been using the computer as regular as usual giving me more time on it.

I promised myself that I would blog about my journey here as soon as I arrived. Then again promises are meant to be broken. All I did was read other updated blogs. My sis progressed more having already blogged quite a lot on what we've been doing. It will however come up soon maybe sometime next week. Non-aviation enthusiasts need not find any reason for excitement on that ..

As for now, I'll just update you all on what's been going with my life here in madrid so far.

Saturday/Sábado --> 11 Nov 06
Arrived in madrid at about 9.35 am. Was just so effing happy to finally be on spanish soil again. Immigration line was rather long and I found my mum waiting for our bags at baggage belt no.7.

Narrowly passed the customs people who randomly opened the luggage of certain passengers for checking. They would have been shocked if they opened ours. I had brought stuff like some huge whole dried fish, pau, cong (chinese rice dumpling) and some kaya. All those foodstuff would have probably been confiscated if found and immediately INCINERATED. You all know how europeans are wih our asian foodstuffs.

a view of madrid

Anyway, we proceeded back home which is to some new place my mum moved into around august. I stayed in a different condo when I was here last year. I realised that the new place ain't that far from the old one. Just a short walk away. It's just nice to actually walk around madrid which is essentially how europe is.

After packing, we went out to the mall nearby which is Centro Comercial La Vaguada mainly for the paella which I've been dreaming about every single day. One of the best is sold freshly in this huge supermarket there called Alcampo.

Imagine how delighted I was to just enter the place. You people must be finding it funny why the first place I head to is the supermarket but i'm not exactly a tourist .. Knowing my mum we bought like almost a full cart of stuff.

Went back for lunch. I felt kind of sleepy later on so I went for nap. Was kinda tired coz I had no proper rest for nearly 24 hours. Next thing I knew it was the next morning.

Sunday/Domingo --> 12 Nov 06
When I opened my eyes it was already 9 am the next morning. Imagine how shocked I was. I slept like almost 15 hours continously without realising. No one had even bothered to wake me up for dinner the night before .. just my luck.

Still everything was just normal. "Good morning" greetings and breakfast. I was not very hungry despite missing dinner. Didn't do much that day just like the lazy spanish on sundays. All we did was take the dogs for a walk dropping buy a cake shop for pastries and baguettes.

Monday/Lunes --> 13 Nov 06
It was another normal day. Did nothing much. I did accompany my mum to the supermarket (yup, again) around the area, Caprabo. Before that, I met up with her in the bank, Caja Madrid down the road. I kinda just helped carry all the stuff back home. Lots of coke, beer, alcohol ..

the oficina laboral filipinas, madrid

We did folow my mum later on to my step-dad's office which is the Oficina Laboral Filipinas in Goya. I finally got to take the public transportation here again. I just love the buses and metro here. It's so not like kl. Clean, consistent, systematic and can be found anywhere. Needless to say, there's almost a metro station every 500m so it's not easy to totally get lost. Went home in step-dad's car.

Tuesday/Martes --> 14 Nov 06
Yet another uneventful day. Generally there's lots of relaxing involved here in madrid. Everything's just cool and fresh here.

In the evening, I accompanied for her medical check-up's and results at the hospital she goes to, Ruber Internacional. For you info Ruber Internacional is the hospital where the Crown Princess of Spain delivered her first child last year. They have some preety modern tests here not like the backward ones in Asia. Hospital's nice but spent a lot of time there. I just read whatever that I brought.

Wednesday/Miércoles --> 15 Nov 06
Woke up a little earlier. Both me and my sis followed my mum to the hospital again. She had some short tests. She was also told that she had allergies to moulds. I told her to ignore it coz she would have been dead by now consuming so much cheese, wine and beer. She had to go back in a weeks time again for some results.

me and mum in the bus

Then she told us she would treat us out for lunch today. Giving us a choice of lasagne or some mexican buffet. Opted for mexican buffet at this place called Sí Señor. My mum came to this place for one of her female friend's 'bachelor' party.

She funnily recounted what she did there as we entered. Her girlfriends and her were drunk. There was something rather embarrasing involved which you can find out if you sincerely ask me personally ..

Sí Señor

Sí Señor was truly mexican and delicious. Really filled me up. Won't mind recommending people to eat there. Nice buffet at an affordable price. 10 euros per head which includes drinks ie. soft drinks and even beer.

After lunch, we went to the El Corte Ingles on the opposite side of the road. I must mention again that this area is relatively near the Malaysian Embassy. Lots of shopping in El Corte Ingles which is one of the biggest departmental store chains in Madrid.

You'll find these green-themed stores all around Madrid. I bought a few sweaters for like daily use. The ones I got were like about 9 euros each. Considerably cheap when compared to european standards.

We went to step-dad's office again in the evening. All of us went home together. Spent the night finishing my mum's hong kong serials together. I'm such a serial drama addict ..

Thursday/Jueves --> 16 Nov 06
It was raining today. I don't exactly like the rain here in madrid. Very much similar to kl. When it rains here, it's just bloody cold and gloomy. Worse still rain here generally continues on for two days. Not like cats and dogs but just minimal water droplets falling continuously .. you can imagine it.

me and mum in the metro

All me and my mum did today was kinda visit this malaysian lady who stays at the Plaza de Castilla area. Her name's, Chan Che and she rents out the TVB Hong Kong serials here. She's a long timer here in madrid and speaks spanish like she was born with it. Her job may not seem so glamorous but being the only authorised dealer in madrid, she's commisioned by the head office in London to catch those selling these serials illegally. Sounds fun to me ..

Friday/Viernes --> 17 Nov 06
As planned today, my mum would have her usual happy hour in tgif with her malaysian friends. Had been loking forward to it the past week. Before that, we went to my step-dad's office again.

the metro

This time me and my sis went ourselves to the office. Trust me it's very safe here and everything's just systematic. Yup, we do it all the time. We had lunch at KFC. I must admit that their chicken here tastes better than the KFC back in malaysia.

Only at about 5pm did we leave for tgif very near the santiago bernabeu stadium which is the real madrid stadium by the way. Seeing those malaysians again was delightful. Rather fun ones to mingle with even the malays.

Mereka tidak terlalu konservatif di luar .. haha. Without naming them, some even consume alcohol. No tudungs mind u for the ladies. No indians in the group though. I just forgot to snap some group pics together.

Had some food like my fav. potato skins. I've had better trust me. Had a number of cocktails. I first ordered a strawberry daquiri and next a piña colada. I also had some of my mum's tasty margarita. Still I was very much stable unlike some I know who would already be drunk. *cough cough*

metro station

By the time we reached home, it was almost 8pm. We had dinner later on. We're just like the spanish here who have dinner at about 9pm daily ..

Saturday/Sábado --> 18 Nov 06
Today's schedule was just spent over lunch at a friend's place. It was this nice Filipino couple, Chema and Shantha who have been residing in Spain for a long time. In fact, Chema was born in Spain while Shantha's actually a British-Indian. Chema who's a great cook actually prepared the lunch. They also have a daughter who's like almost 24 named Pellar, i think that's how it's spelt.

It was the first time meeting them as I had ony heard of them during my last trip. They had such a nice place which was small yet spacious. You could have imagined how glad I was when I was told that Chema had worked for Phillipine Airlines and that he knew lots about the aviation industry. He was even once the airline Head Manager for the Middle East.

There was a different look on his face when my step-dad told him that my ambition was to be a pilot. It was like he felt better that he could talk about those stuff with me. We had a few short convos here and there. He even convinced me to instead join the airline marketing sector like him. That was when he was told that I wanted to see the world.

Apparently, you still get to travel a LOT without being a pilot. Chema added that almost 90 % of his job involved travelling. He spent little time at home. Travel times just took up all the time. He even gained a fear of flying to some extent as a result. He said that being the top executives who knew the 'going-ons' just made him fear the reality of that industry. Furthermore, he said that pilots would only be able to make friends with other pilots .. so its kind of limited.

From stuff like how the in-flight food was prepared and how pilots sometimes flew the planes just shocked him. Upon mentioning the fact that Phil. Airlines had stopped its KL route, he was kind of surprised. He later explained that MAS ain't that bad. His MAS friends were apparently immediately snapped up by Qantas when they migrated to aussie.

I'll definitely consider Chema's advice in case my eyesight deteriorates badly or a barrier of some sort. We only left their place at like 7pm. My step-dad had so much to talk about with Chema while me and my sis just sat with my mum listening to her talking to Shantha. I think even my mum got bored. Believe it or not, I spent nearly 5 hours listening to two ladies blab about rubbish ..

Sunday/Domingo --> 19 Nov 06
Our malaysian friends had invited us to go for a picnic with them at some place near some stream at Navacerrada. It's scenic and apparently you can pick mushrooms nearby. However, we couldn't go as my step-dad had some other event to attend plus it started raining the night before. Thus it was cancelled.

in the bus

While my step-dad was not at home, we had the computer to ourselves. Later in the evening, we took the bus to the chinese store as my mum wanted to buy some foodstuff. The 124 bus brings us to the Tetuan area where it is located and back home.

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As for this week, there's not been much to talk about. Step-dad fell sick so he didn't go to work from monday to wednesday. He sleeps all day making me wonder how he'd manage to fall asleep at night. Furthermore, it's been raining almost every other day this week. Thank god this ain't my first visit to Madrid or else we wouldn't be able to go see the sights around madrid.

Preety much stuck at home. Did lots of reading and watched some korean dramas. Shockingly, I'm currently kind of hooked on 'My Lovely Samsoon' being rather interesting which was originally my sis's idea. Have been doing lots of surfing online but its usually done at night so I finish really late. Latest being 6 am .. haha

Other than the above, there were short visits to the supermarket and my step-dad's office. Something I ought to mention is me helping my mum completing my step-dad's annual reports. His secretary was sent back to manila and he doesn't get a new one. She finds it tedious but it's kind of just similar to projects that I ussually do.

Finally, I think I need to start regularly talking the dogs out for walks. I need the exercise especially when I'm constantly being bugged by mummy's cooking.

Congrats to my sis, Brenda for her 3A's in her UPSR exam ! You did your best ..

-adios-

I'm Leaving On A Bus

In a matter of hours, I'll be leaving on a bus .. yes a bus, not a jet plane .. to a place by the name of Pulau Pangkor. Terlalu dramatic. Me together with a few Form 4's and a huge bunch of Form 3's will be heading to this island. I shall spare you all from all the fake beauty of this place till I see it for myself though I remember going there during Chinese New Year almost 5 years ago.

This will be a short one so i'll just present you all with some celebrity news.

First, some shocking news. Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Philippe has filed for divorce recently. This is rather un-becoming of Hollywood couples and come on, this couple was the last couple I thought of on this issue. They had always been all sweet and lovey dovey. Some clear examples include their appearances at award shows in particular this years, Acadamy Awards where Reese won an Oscar for her appearance as June Carter in Walk The Line while the movie Ryan acted in, Crash won the "Best Movie" award ..

This is sad. The only long-lasting couples I can probably think of now are the Beckhams as well as Justin Timberlake who's with Cameron Diaz.

Meanwhile, TomKat have announced that they would be getting married soon. TomKat as in Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have announced they would be taking the next step in their relationship on the 18th of November. They will have their weeding in Italy. I suppose it will be held at close friend, George Clooney's villa there.

Congrats to TomKat !! Hopefully you do not portray so much of a Datuk K-Siti Nurhaliza image.

I just finished packing all my stuff. Will be sleeping soon. I hope i'll enjoy this trip. Will post again when i'm back. Also hope Osaka trip students have a fun time.

-adios-