¡Viaje a Barcelona!

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February 25th 2008

Published: February 25th 2008

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Britt347

Day at the beach

mis pies en el mar de Mediterranean!

Hola a todos!

I hope everything is great with you all; everything is fantastic here!! This last weekend i went to Barcelona with the ISA group for our only really big excursion and it was fabulous!

We left Friday morning at 8 AM (too early) in a bus for the 4 hour ride to Barcelona. I didn't mind the ride at all because not only do i love road trips, but i also got to sit next too a group of super guays (cool people- a phrase my comp teacher uses all the time lol) so we basically just talked the whole time. When we got into Barcelona we had time to unpack and eat some lunch before our first excursion for that afternoon. We had a little problem because Christian, one of the main director, put me and Molly in different rooms. We had packed together and he was being a jerk about it, but we figured it out and switched the rooms around with some other girls so everything was good. Molly and I ate our bocadillos de sopresada that Laudi had packed for us (delicious) and unpacked a bit. We walked to the meeting spot, which

Paella

paella de pollo y conejo..chicken and rabbit

was Casa Mila, a building designed by the famous artist/architect Gaudi. Everything in Madrid is about Gaudi, and Casa Mila was one of the buildings he was hired to construct. The facade was really cool, and we learned that really rich people still get to live there, though i dont think that i would like that because there are tourists and tours all of the time! The best part of this building was the roof. It was like a maze/playground with a bunch of different chimneys fashioned to look like guards, and entrances into the building. Gaudi was all about curves, which at that time was unheard of. After we played there for awhile, we walked pretty much across the street to the house that he built and lived in while he was alive. The facade of this one was amazing to, and told a story of a caballero that conquered and killed a dragon, a common tale in Spain. The roof is supposed to look like the scales of the dragon, the chimney is the end of the lance, the balconies are fashioned after masks from the ball that was after the conquering of the dragon, and finally the

Barcelona

Nueva cara..new face. Designed by Picasso or Gaudi (i can't remember) for Barcelona after the wars ended.

support beams/ columns are "made from the bones of the dragon". Pretty cool. We had free time that night, and so after dinner we went down the Ramblas, which is a long street of craziness. There are tons of people there, and it is literally a party in the street. Every ten feet you encounter a man that is selling cans of beer from a six-pack that he purchased at the grocery store lol. They made a great profit on it, and even though it is illegal to drink in the streets, everyone does it. A friend of mine, Charlotte, had an Australian friend that lives there so he took us to a bunch of different local bars and we had a great time!

The next day we had a tour of the Barri Gotic (gothic neighborhood) with ISA. On this tour we saw a lot of the historical sites in Barcelona, such as their cathedral, old churches, etc. My favorite part was when we visited a plaza that existed during the Spanish Inquisition. It was a sad and gloomy place because the whole point was to see the holes and crevices in the walls that were from when

Barcelona

Casa Mila

they used to line up people and children and shoot them..also during the time of Franco. It is still surreal to all of us Americanos to really get familiarized with the times of Franco, and the devastation that he caused for all of Spain that still has an impact on its people to this day. It is also really cool to be standing in a site that existed before the time of Christ, you don't even have a clue all of the people that stood in that exact point at some point in time. After this tour we had more free time so my group de amigos ventured to two places: La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell. La Sagrada Familia is the most famous building of Gaudi and is still being worked on to this day. It was first started in 1882 and is constructed solely on donations and the money brought in from the tourism. It was amazing!!! We waited in line for about an hour to be able to ride the elevator to the top and walk down and it was definitely worth it. La Sagrada Familia directly translates to "The Sacred Family" which fits because it is

Barcelona

Casa Mila

a Roman Catholic church. I stole some info from Wikipedia about it(so don't report me) but here it is:

"Originally designed by Antoni Gaudí (1852 - 1926), who worked on the project for over 40 years, devoting the last 15 years of his life entirely to the endeavor, the project is scheduled to be completed in 2026. On the subject of the extremely long construction period, Gaudí is said to have remarked, "My client is not in a hurry." After Gaudí's death in 1926, work continued under the direction of Domènech Sugranyes until interrupted by the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

Towers
Every part of the design of La Sagrada Família is rich with Christian symbolism, as Gaudí intended the church to be the "last great sanctuary of Christendom". Its most striking aspect is its spiandle-shaped towers. A total of 18 tall towers are called for, representing in ascending order of height the Twelve Apostles, the four Evangelists, the Virgin Mary and, tallest of all, Jesus Christ. (According to the 2005 "Works Report" of the temple's official website, drawings signed by Gaudí found recently in the Municipal Archives indicate that the tower of the Virgin was in fact

Barcelona

roof of Casa Mila

intended by Gaudí to be shorter than those of the evangelists, and this is the design — which the Works Report states is more compatible with the existing foundations — that will be followed. The same source explains the symbolism in terms of Christ being known through the Evangelists.) The Evangelists' towers will be surmounted by sculptures of their traditional symbols: a bull (St Luke), a winged man (St Matthew), an eagle (St John), and a lion (St Mark). The central tower of Jesus Christ is to be surmounted by a giant cross; the tower's total height (170 m) will be one metre less than that of Montjuïc, as Gaudí believed that his work should not surpass that of God. Lower towers are surmounted by communion hosts with sheaves of wheat and chalices with bunches of grapes, representing the Eucharist.

Facades
The Church will have three grand façades: the Nativity façade to the East, the Glory façade to the South (yet to be completed) and the Passion façade to the West. The Nativity facade was built before work was interrupted in 1935 and bears the most direct Gaudí influence. The Passion façade is especially striking for its spare,

Barcelona

roof of Casa Mila

gaunt, tormented characters, including emaciated figures of Christ being flogged and on the crucifix. These controversial designs are the work of Subirachs.

Interior
The church plan is that of a Latin cross with five aisles. The central nave vaults reach 45 meters while the side nave vaults reach 30 meters. The transept has 3 aisles. The columns are on a 7.5 meter grid however the columns of the apse, resting on del Villar's foundation, do not adhere to the grid, requiring a section of columns of the ambulatory to transition to the grid thus creating a horseshoe pattern to the layout of those columns. The crossing rests on the four central columns of porphyry supporting a great hyperboloid surrounded by two rings of 12 hyperboloids (currently under construction). The central vault reaches 60 meters. The apse will be capped by a hyperboloid vault reaching 75 meters. Gaudi intended that a visitor standing at the main entrance be able to see the vaults of the nave, crossing, and apse, thus the graduated increase in vault loftiness.

The columns of the interior are a unique Gaudi design. Besides branching to support their load, their ever-changing surfaces are the

Barcelona

casa de Gaudi

result of the intersection of various geometric forms. The simplest example is that of a square base evolving into an octagon as the column rises, then a 16-sided form, and eventually to a circle. This effect is the result of a three-dimensional intersection of helicoidal columns (for example a square cross-section column twisting clockwise and a similar one twisting counter-clockwise)."

It was absolutely amazing, but still not my favorite part of Barcelona. My favorite was...Parc Guell! It was also designed by Gaudi, and is a huge park with a museum, a huge plaza, a restaurant, and other various buildings. It is situated on a hill/mountain toward the north of Barcelona and was absolutely fabulous. We went exploring there for a while, and it is incredible the details that are put into every little thing and design. It is also an actual forest, with a billion different types of trees and plants. It was nice to escape the city for a bit! It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites and also had some damn good bocadillos at the restaurante. That evening we also went out, across the port to other bars and clubs.

By the next morning

Barcelona

casa de Gaudi

and only one hour of sleep we were tired, but still made it down by 9 to eat and catch the bus because we wanted to see the rest of the sites. That day we had a guided tour of the Museo de Picasso. It was interesting, but i am not really an artsy person and by the end of the tour i needed some food to refuel. I liked all of the works though, and the museum was laid out in a cool way- by the years and eras of his life- so we got to see everything. Because Picasso lived in Barcelona, I believe that it is the largest collection of his works. He continuously made donations to it with new pieces, but sadly never got to see it because he vowed not to return to Spain, his home, until the terror of Franco was over. Picasso died before Franco, and thus never saw it. My favorites were the ones that he did to depict "Las Meninas" by Velazquez, the most famous Spanish artist. We got to see the original in El Prado in Madrid, and so it was fun to know what Picasso was depicting and the

Barcelona

statue de Christopher Columbus..trying to point to America but really is pointing in the wrong direction lol

parts he decided to focus on.

All in all it was an amazing trip, but Barcelona is no comparison to Valencia- Valencia is way better. Less tourists, more spanish, and the people here are way friendlier. I loved seeing all of the historical sites, but was definitely glad to come home! This upcoming Thursday, Molly and I leave for London so i will be sure to blog and post pictures after that trip!

Hope everyone has a great week and love/miss you all!

besos y abrazos,

Britt

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