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Published: November 28th 2008
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Dragon House
See the bones in the window? They are the bones of the dragon. You'll also notice that there are no/few straight lines in the house - one of Gaudi's trademarks. *note on Barcelona: This city is the capital of Catalunya, a region of Spain that doesn’t consider itself “Spanish.” They speak their own language, Catalan and have their own culture. While most people also speak Spanish, all the street signs were in Catalan; however, this is the city where I heard the most English spoken on the streets (by both tourists and locals). Friday I wore my pea coat for the first time since I had to walk to the bus stop at 6am to meet the group. We bussed to the airport in Madrid and took an hour long flight to Barcelona. We landed at noon and took a bus to our hotel which was right off the Plaza Catalunya (in the very center of Barcelona). The hotel room was the best so far (excluding my trip with Ed and Vivian, of course) and even had a balcony overlooking the plaza!
We had a few hours of free time so Sara, Andrea and I sat in the plaza to eat the sandwiches that our host moms had given us. There were lots of people walking about in the Plaza, and even more pigeons flying around. Afterwards we strolled down
Wavy House
A little more boring in design since there isn't any dragon story to it - but again no straight lines. La Rambla, the 1 mile road that takes you from the plaza to the marina. It’s a huge sidewalk filled with artists, street mimes, craft fairs, restaurants, bird markets, fresh food markets and other little shops.
We had to return to the hotel to meet the group for our bus tour of Barcelona where we met our British tour guide. He’s been living and working in Barcelona for 20 years, so I think he knew what he was talking about, but I was a little disappointed that he did the whole tour in English. He took us to Park Guell, a suburban housing development designed by Barcelona’s most famous architect Gaudi. Fortunately, the idea failed since no one wanted to live so far away from the city and now it’s a really beautiful park filled with creative houses, markets, walkways and plazas from the 1930’s.
After the tour, Andrea, Sara and I went out for dinner at the restaurant we had made a reservation for earlier that day because they had a great menu of the day price. Unfortunately, when we got there, they had taken away the menu of the day and we had to pay full price off
Resting
Took a rest in the chair by Gaudi before entering the apartment. the regular menu. We decided to each order something different and share it all. We each sampled the risotto, chicken and rice and duck with sweet potatoes - everything was delicious, but the best deal was that the waiter forgot to charge us for our “cava” (champagne that is famous in this region. We had studied about it in culture class so of course I had to try it!). I felt like I got my menu of the day price after all. We got an ice cream for dessert and headed back to the hotel.
Saturday I had a plentiful breakfast at the hotel (it was buffet) and went with the group for our tour of the Palau de la Musica (Music Palace). It’s a whimsically designed concert hall built in 1908 that is still used today. We had a guided tour (again, in English) of the building and learned the history of the choir community that built and still owns it today.
After the tour, I went down to the marina and took a boat cruise around the marina and along the shoreline of Barcelona. It was a little windy, but otherwise a great day to be on
Park Guell
Gaudi wanted this housing development to be like an English garden so instead of giving it a Catalan name, they called it the Park in English. the water.
We bought pasta salad and fruit for lunch in the huge outdoor market off La Rambla and headed up the mountain Montjuic to meet some of Sara’s friends.
With them we saw the Olympic field from the 1992 summer games, a Spanish Epcot-like theme park (no rides, just walking from town to town which showed the differences between the lifestyles/architecture in different regions of Spain), and the Magic Fountain of Barcelona (my favorite part as I’m sure you’ll notice by all the videos I took of it!). At 7pm on Friday and Saturday nights, this fountain turns on, lights up and “dances” to the music. They are only 30 minute shows, but as I stayed for four of them, I think I saw 2 hours of this fountain.
Sunday Had another scrumptious breakfast at the hotel then left to see the houses of Gaudi (the architect from before; the people of Barcelona like him so much that they have petitioned the church to have him beatified as the patron saint of architects!). He designed one house at the bequest of a friend that tells the story of St. Jordi (patron saint of Barcelona). The house is covered
Chimney Roof
On top of the wavy house are tons of chimneys. Its rumoured that when George Lucas was looking for inspiration for the storm troopers costume, he came here - see the storm trooper helmets on the right? in purple, green and blue tiles to look like dragon skin and the windows are made out of the “bones” of the dragon. The cross at the top of the house represents the spear of St. Jordi who slayed the dragon to save a woman who was about to be eaten - all that is supposedly represented inside the house also, but since it cost 16 euro (you do the math in $) I chose not to go in.
Instead, I entered the apartment building that he designed. This building is often called the “wavy house”, (but they say it in Catalan) since it was designed without a single straight edge. We toured an apartment decorated in the middle-class style of the time in which the building was constructed. By the decoration inside, I think the middle class people must have lived pretty well back then. After the apartment, we toured the attic, which is a museum, then the roof which has tons of individually designed chimneys.
We left the building and met Sara’s friends again for lunch at a gyro restaurant. The three of us decided to rent bikes and ride around the city for the afternoon which turned
3 on the Chimney
On top of the Chimney roof, if you look of Sara's shoulder you can see the Sagrada Familia Church in the background. out to be a lot of fun. We only had to ride on the road a little bit (a near death experience for some of us) but most of the time we could ride on the sidewalks. We rode down to the beach to test the water (cold, go figure!) then found a park to ride around that had a huge fountain, a zoo and lots of people. We went up to see the Sagrada Familia, the unfinished church by Gaudi, then had to race back to return the bikes and get to the hotel before the group left for the airport.
Our plane was an hour late and the bus ride (on a double decker bus) seemed to last forever. We arrived in Salamanca at 2:30am which didn’t bother me since I could sleep in until lunchtime! No class on Monday mornings, thank goodness!
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