Barcelona 18-04-2013 till 21-04-2013

End 2012 I decided I wanted to go to Blythecon Barcelona (mistaken it for Blythecon Europe which will be held in June 2013) and like last year the con in Berlin I decided to add some extra days in order to explore the city. I invited my mother to accompany me (my phonebill was too high last time I went alone <__<) and booked a room at the hostel Be Ramblas.

Flight and the trip to the hostel were very uneventfull. KLM has perfect service as always and we arrived at Barcelona airport after 2 hours. It was suggested we'd take the train and subway to the hostel but we found out there is a special busservice that takes you to the center of the city in about 35 minutes (depending on traffic) for € 5,90 which is quite a nice deal.

However when we arrived at place de Catalunya my mother had the brilliant idea to walk to the hostel because she said the Ramblas wasn't that long as she remembered, well and we can certainly say memory isn't always right lol. It was hot and crowded and our hostel was near the end of the Ramblas so it took us a while to get there while dodging people with our suitcases.

The hostel was really nice but small but I see a hostelroom as a place to only sleep and not spend too much time in it. After unpacking and taking a little breather we went to explore town a little, looking for a place to eat lunch. 

Gaudi museum in the same street as our hostel.

The Ramblas is one of the more popular streets of Barcelona filled with restaurants and streetpreformers. If you want to see your fair share of living statues, this is the place to be. Also pickpocket heaven so watch your stuff. 

Loved this guy.

In my opinion dining at the Ramblas is overrated, it's expensive and not that great. I've eaten at much better spots elsewhere in town. When you walk down the Ramblas towards the sea you will run into the statue of Columbus point towards America. 

Land ho!

And we walked down the boulevard towards the harbor. If you live in Barcelona you don't really have to own a car. Public transportation is perfect here and most people own a scooter or motorbike. But it's also the city of the bicycle. In several locations you can rent a bike and they have this nifty electronic system that lets you rent one with your phone. 

Walking like a boss.

By chance we ran into the Gothic area of the city with small streets and great little shops and very impressive old architecture. Never seen this before but I loved it. Even ran into a little shop called Pika Pika selling Pokemon, Dragonball and Blythe :D.

Compaired to Amsterdam, these narrow streets don't scare the bejesus out of me.

I don't mind living here.


Old
versus
New

Best thing of being in a different country is all the good stuff you get to try and taste. Next to pinchos and churros this is one of my new favorites.

Pick your flavour and add chocolate dip or nutty dip. Very delicious!

You can't skip visiting the Sagrada when you are in Barcelona. I heard the church was out of the scaffolding but that was a lie :(. I doubt it will ever be finished in my lifetime. It's a very expensive project for the city and sometimes will be halted due to lack of funding. Still its a magnificent building.

When you are in Barcelona you must visit Parc Guell by Gaudi. Antoni Gaudi is a Spanish Catalan architect and figurehead of Catalan Modernism. I would really love to work and live in this city using my education and give guided tours here, but my Spanish needs to be better first.

Gaudi's work is influenced by his passions in life: architecture, nature and religion. He intergrated into his architecture several crafts in which he was skilled: ceramics, carpentry, stained glass and wrought ironwork forging.

Two days is too short to visit everything you must see in this city. I'll be back for sure in the future. The people who live here are wonderful, the climate in April is acceptable and there still much left to see and do. 

Barcelona comes in my top 10 list of cities on the third place. 

Review time!: Iron Man MarkVII Revoltech Kaiyodo

When ordering figurines online I always rely on official sites instead of Ebay. It may be more expensive but I want 100% guarantee that my figurine is the real deal. Sadly Ebay has a lot of copied products outthere and you will be spending your hard-earned money on a fake.

This time around I pre-ordered the Iron Man MarkVII from Revoltech (Kaiyodo) through Hobbylink Japan (http://www.hlj.com/). They have this nifty new option called online warehouse that let's you store your pre-orders for 60 days until you are ready to recieve them. My Hot Toys Captain America came from them a few months ago and overall I am happy with the service of HLJ. If I don't order through HLJ, I will order through Archonia (http://www.archonia.com/mangashop/en/). Both companies carry different shipping options while HLJ will use EMS-shipping for the more expensive merchandise. For the little stuff you can use the snail-mail option, it's cheap and it gets to you eventually.

So now back to Iron Man.



As all Revoltech figures this one is displayed with various fitting pictures of the legal parties involved in the issue of this item and explosions :D! It's not Iron Man if it doesn't blow shit up.

Now comes the joke that made me fall for this figure. The awsome-sauce-amazing flight pose as I have pointed out below.

 

But alas to my dismay. There is no way you can keep this pose on display :(. Figma give you the cool clear plastic holders that can help you pose your figure in all sorts of aerodynamic and acrobatic poses. But Revoltech only gave me standard *le sigh*.

Though I give the thumbs up for Revoltech for adding a container for the bits and pieces you recieve with the figure. I have food containers hidden under my bed full with body parts of my collection. My cat Bailey tends to run of with anything that looks like a toy to him and will have me chasing him around the livingroom for me to get my precious parts back. Look at the cool blasters, I can do pew-pew now.



There he is Tony Stark in his full armored glory. Revoltech puts little bits of protective plastic between the joints to save the paintwork but calls for bloody murder to get them out. Did I tell you I love to smell of fresh plastic in the morning?



Overal the paintjob is nicely done, he got a bit slacky at the back but I can over see it, it's only a slight bit. That is also a point for spotting a fake product, the fakies have absolutely horrible paint jobs, it really looks like a five-year-old that doesn't know how to color within the line. And ofcourse the quality of the material. This figure feels solid, the joints very sturdy and you can shake it with your might, no bits will fly off. Yes I put my figures through some abuse when I get my hands on them.

Here comes the pose I wanted him in but sadly no way of displaying him like this unless lying him down on his belly in my cabinet (which looks a bit silly in my opinion). Maybe one day I will revert to my inner-child and skip across the room doing the Buzz Lightyear with him but that will have to wait until noone's home or I will be checked in the closest mental institution.



Fly with me Tony!!

When I tried to mount him on his stand, Iron Man suggested me he wanted to do the Limbo.
Hilarity continued and soon it became frustration because he kept toppling over. Luckily I could fix it by clicking his feet in the right position.



And there his is with his lasers, pew-pewing away the bad guys. I am quite happy with him, being an Iron Man fan and all.



Smexy close up of his paintjob.



And here you see him dwarfed by Cap in his display space. This Iron Man is the Avengers 2012 version so it's fitting he gets a spot next to Cap.



Probably in May I will recieve my Hot Toys Avengers 2012 version of Iron Man (the same size as Cap) and I will be needing to find a new space for these bad boys. They don't really fit in between my anime related merchandise. But for my Iron Man needs I will have to do with the upcoming release of Iron Man 3 on the big screen in April.

Good deal :)

In the past I would buy my dvd's when they get released and pay a high price for them to have them first. But since my hours were cut back I have less money to spend, so I need to be creative with my purchases. Also I was a bit out of the dvd-scene and missed a lot of releases a.k.a spending my money on something else lol.

So in the beginning of 2013 I started rewatching the Harry Potter series and found myself missing the last 3 dvd's :/. I could have borrowed them from a friend, but never came around to ask her. I did look them up on Bol.com but they were still very expensive for movies that were released atleast 3 years ago.

I couldn't believe my luck when I opened up the new folder of Blokker to see them offer the dvd's of Harry Potter for €5,99. So I completed my collection for less then €18 and can proceed to finish my Harrython this weekend :).

Mumford & Sons

Yesterday was the Mumford & Sons concert in the Ziggo Dome (Amsterdam) and I totally loved it. And just like Marcus Mumford said I also had my firsts yesterday. First time visiting the Ziggo Dome and first time I went to an English folk rock band.

The way there went smooth and I arrived an hour early before the doors would open. Not to worry I had my paperback with me and a quick pop inside the Mediamarkt took care of the waiting time. 

Unfortunatly I acted like a meek little lamb and stop in the longest line, which turned out to be the waiting line  for the floor and I was seated in the south ring. The line was a lot shorter there. After the bag search I came across lockers and the wardrobe. You can store your possession for a mere €2 (which you will not get back) and seeing that I had to catch the train home on time I picked this option instead of waiting in line for my jacket/bag.

While the Heineken Music Hall has a wide arrange of unhealthy/fatty snacks, the Ziggo Dome has a La Place where you can buy besides the regular bag of chips many different sandwiches, salades, smoothies and ofcourse your daily cup of coffee. I opted for a hotdog and tea and made my way to my seat. 

You buy ziggo-chips at the entrance on a conversion rate of 1 chip for €2,86. A cup of cola, tea, & coffee cost 1 chip, beer costs 1,5 chips and the more expensive alcohol beverages cost 2 chips and up. I found the price quite reasonable seeing as I pay around €2,50 for a Coke when I go out. 

I was seated in section 109, first Ring of the South entrance. My seat was not close to the stage but I paid to listen to them preform and not goggle at their faces. I could have purchased a floorticket but I know that I will never be able to stand the full day to get a good spot until the end of the concert. Besides standing too close to people makes me overheated and the chance of fainting pretty high.

The support acts consisted of Half Moon Run (Canadian indie rock band, which I liked very much) and the Mystery Jets (an English indie rock band) that filled up the time with great songs until Mumford would take the stage. The DJ that filled up the half hour before the main event really read my mind while I was thinking how great it would be to see Daft Punk at the Ziggo Dome by starting the song Digital Love from the album Discovery. He later trolled the audience by playing Cry me A River, by Justin Timberlake when everyone thought the main event was finally going to start. 

The main event itself was amazing. Marcus' voice blew me away and I loved how every bandmember went wild while playing. They were really personal and warm towards the audience. Marcus wanted to see the crowd dance, and danced they did. Don't wear your best outfit when you stand on the floor, I saw the occasional cup of beer flying around. My personal experience with the music was getting goosebumps with each song. 

I always found the lyrics used by the band very deep and inspiring like:

Well I came home like a stone and I fell heavy into your arms. These days of darkness which we have known, will blow away with this new sun.

and

It's empty in the valley of your heart. The sun, it rises slowly as you walk. Away from all the fears and all the faults you've left behind. 

The band enjoyed playing and the audience loved the show. They even surprised us with an acoustic piece of Reminder on a single microphone in the middle of the dome. At the end they gathered the 2 support acts and all 3 bands played together one great song.

Unfortunatly the photo's I took were with my phone and not of the greatest quality. I prefer my camera but having a brick around your neck for more then 3 hours is too much for me. So I will leave you with my photoset of the evening and some youtube-videos made by their respective owners.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv4OEGim-JI

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25153504@N07/sets/72157633131468128/

Thank you Mumford & Sons

Thank you Half Moon Run

Thank you Mystery Jets

and Thank you Ziggo Dome and all their employees for this wonderful night!

Please support artists by buying their music!