Barcelona

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We traveled to Barcelona a couple weekends ago! Here are some of the highlights:

The famous architect in Barcelona is Gaudi, who designed Park Guell and the Sagrada Familia. This is a massive church still under construction, but started in the 1800´s. The last fifteen years of Gaudi´s life were spent designing it, and it is definitely an interesting spectacle, with three distinct facades: The passion, the nativity, and glory. My favorite outside view was of the frogs and alligators on one of the sides. We did not get to go inside, but the columns inside are supposed to look like tree trunks and branches.

One of my favorite places in Barcelona was Park Güell. It almost looked like something out of Berenstain bears, and was a sophisticated but fantastical mix of the outdoors, mosaics, curvy columns, and paths. The central area was overlooking a great view of Barcelona, and there was ridicously large soap bubbles, dredlocks, didgeridoos, and painters.

We went through the Picasso museum, where we saw the progression of his paintings from th realistic paintings... to the Blue Period , the Rose Period,etc up to his famous cubism style. There was also a room chock full of his cubism influenced paintings copied from the image of Las Meninas by Velasquez. We were feeling pretty cool when we realized we remembered we had seen the real ¨las meninas¨in the Prado in Madrid.

La Rambla is one of the best known streets in Barcelona, and for good reason. It had bird vendors, flower vendors, the market , and leads up to the Columbus monument overlooking the Mediterranean.(We got to see a skinny dipper- far enough away to not be scandalized, but close enough to get a good laugh) The Mercat de la Boqueria was amazing. As you walk in, you first drool over the icecream and chocolate/nut goods, then buy a fresh smoothie in the fruit section, and continue to the biggest and last section where the smell somehow doesnt bother you because with all the oozy sea creatures and women with large knives hacking away at large chunks of meat you can´t help but stare. And take lots of pictures. And squeal. By nighttime its best to steer clear of La Rambla street as it slowly turns debaucherous, and Barcelona shows its uglier side.

The Gran Teatre del Liceu is one of the top opera houses in Europe. We waited in line for an hour trying to get tickets( 15 € nosebleed section) to a Handel orchestra concert, only to watch the seats we were about to buy turn from white to green on the screen. The people at the counter next to us took the last tickets so we left with our heads hanging low.... and after a 10 minutes grieving period ,we discovered, in our handy dandy LETS GO book, that there was indeed another music hall! So we ran across town to see if we could catch another show at the palau de musica catalan, but this didn´t work out either.

The 1992 Olympics were held in Barcelona, so we had the chance to peek at the stadium and it was much smaller than I expected, and the seats looked quite uncomfortable.

We went to a chocolate museum where we learned a lot about the history of chocolate but really spent more time drooling over the various sculptures. We found a cheap hostal for 15 € a night, I ended up banging my knee on the corner, to find the bed collapsing under me. How many chicas does it take to repair a broken hostal bed? Four, and one to sleep very stiffly so as not to counter the balanced structure.

For eats, we luckily we found a place with cheap three course meals so I could get in some sustenance and fulfill my recent flan addiction.

This last weekend, we spent in Sevilla , finally went to the Alcazar, and went through its beautiful surrounding gardens. I almost felt guilty to see such beautiful things all in one day.
My friends and I went with Lourdes (The 21 year old daughter in the family of 9 that lives under me) to a bar covered with semana santa photos, and then to a friends house where we enjoyed an authentic spanish party. They played flamenco, danced, and sang the night away. One of them is a costelero, which is one of about 30 people under the floats during semana santa, The floats rest on a towel on their head with their necks bent, and you cannot see them because they are suurounded by a curtain. Can you say ibuprofen...

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