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Published: March 3rd 2008
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Barcelona
view from Gaudi Park First off, I am very tired right now, but I´ll try to make this blog interesting anyway. I spent two and half days in Barcelona which was pretty good. Barcelona is a really cool city, very large and it has a lot to offer. The days in the city involved an absurd amount of walking, but especially in cities with a lot of cool stuff, taking the bus or metro makes you miss out on a lot as you go from stop to stop (plus it costs more). The first day I walked through the Gothic quarter of the city and checked out the cathedrals, alleyways, and other cool buildings. Then I sadly found out that the Picasso museum is closed on Mondays (which it was) and so went into another small art gallery and then walked through a pretty big and impressive park. Then I followed the shoreline for a while seeing some cool boats and buildings, including the world trade center. I walked up Las Ramblas (a famous street) which was alright but not too exciting and through the huge, colorful market which was pretty crazy. Then I walked up a large hill called Montjuic (jewish mountain) which
Barcelona 1992
Olympic stadium and monument contained a castle, a park with a Greek theater, and the stadiums and buildings used for the 1992 Olympics. Then it was about time to head back to the hostel and collapse (meaning eat some pizza and drink some beers). The next day was a themed day, and that theme was Antoni Gaudi. He is a famous architect who has designed a number of buildings in Barcelona and I went touring them. There were a couple houses which I looked at but didn´t go into and then I got to the Sagrada Familia. It is absolutely huge, and getting bigger. The spires you see in the pictures are just over 100 meters tall, but in the center is being built a giant tower which is going to be over 170 meters tall. There was a ton of detail put into the carvings covering all of the walls and the doors and the ceiling and the whole thing was just really cool. The inside was full of construction so that wasn't quite as cool, but I got to take a lift up to the top and then walk all the way down on a spiral staircase which was a little bit
cramped and dizzying. Ok, I have to stop writing now before I fall asleep, I'll pick this up again another day.
Damn, I waited too long to come back to this, it all seems distant already. Anyways, from what I can remember, I headed from the very large Sagrada Familia up to Park Guell, which is generally known as Gaudi Park. It has a number of houses that were designed by him and most things in the park, like the walkways, bridges, and benches are all somewhat interestingly made. There were a number of "street musicians" in the park so there was usually some good music to accompany the sights and the park was up a big hill overlooking Barcelona so it was a pretty great place. After spending a good deal of time in the park, I headed back to the hostel to share a bottle of wine with Dan and then stay up watching movies with a couple Dutch girls late into the morning.
I think that about sums up Barcelona, and from there I took a train down to Valencia. Daniel did so too, but he left before I got up and we had different
hostels booked so I've been back on my own since. Valencia was a pretty great city. When I got there at about 4 or 5, it was sunny and about 72 degrees, which was a most welcome change to some of the cold we'd been in in Europe. I got settled into my hostel, which was pretty cool but rather large, which is a little intimidating at first when you realise you are the newcomer in a building of about 100 people. I walked around our neighborhood for a bit to learn the surroundings and then came back and started hanging out with a group of 4 Australian guys and a German girl. We drank and played cards in the hostel for a while then headed out to go to some local pubs. It seems weird to me when walking to or from bars to be passing giant, lit-up cathedrals and fountains, but I certainly can't complain. Being in Spain, people only started showing up at the pub around 1 o'clock and then at about 2:30 some of the guys decided to head to a club but I called it a night being a weakly little American. The following day
I forget what this is
But at night the fountain gets going and there are really cool light shows all over this building and plaza I walked with the German girl around most of the center of the city seeing the plazas, the cathedral which supposedly houses the holy grail (but I didn't get to drink out of it or even look at it - what a rip-off), and some very large markets. Then she headed off to go souvenier shopping while I went to the Museum de las bellas artas (museum of fine arts). It was pretty cool, very large, full of great paintings and free. Then I walked a ways through an interesting park that goes through the city. There used to be a large river going through Valencia (just like every other European city) but apparently it had issues with flooding and doing damage to the city so they managed to divert the river to the south of the city and they then had this large, walled, river channel through the city which they turned into a very long, snaking park. I went through a student-run botanical garden on my way back which was not very spectacular except that a number of art students were positioned around the gardens painting different scenes, so I stealthely watched some of them for a while.
Gaudi House
One of the buildings in town designed by Antoni Gaudi Went back to the hostel and hung out with the German girl for a while before she took her €15 flight back to Germany (I should have been flying around Europe) and then had a relaxing night. And oh ya, it rained for most of that day, which was very disappointing after receiving such a warm welcome. The next day, however, was beautiful again and I walked through much of the city and the river/park to an area with some science and art exhibit type things. There is a huge, interactive science center and an "oceanographia" which is supposed to be an incredible acquarium type thing, but they were both really expensive (like $35) so I just walked around the outside which was plenty good for me. The buildings were deffinately products of "modern art" style engineering and the spending of a lot of money. Cool buildings, gorgeous day, me not spending any money, not too bad. Then back to the hostel to cook some dinner and while doing so met a couple Canadian girls and a couple Americans from D.C. (not the stereotypical obnoxious stupid Americans, but cool Indian computer engineering Americans). Now, in Spain you can buy a
Sagrada Familia
Massive church designed by Gaudi and still under construction 1L box of sangria for about €0.60 - good deal - but it isn't really strong and tastes rather like juice, but we headed to the store and picked up a few of these boxes and a bottle of rum to spice it up with which made for a fun night in the hostel and walking randomly around the city. The next morning had breakfast then we sat out on the roof of the hostel enjoying the sun for a little while before I had to catch my 8 1/2 hour train to Sevilla. Alright, that will do it for this blog. I'm off for another day in Sevilla now. Adios.
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