No Rain in Spain

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The cold freeze of Switzerland required drastic measures. Either it was to turn into a freakin snowman, or jump onto a plane to Spain. So be it, I got onto my EasyJet plane and rode south.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Barcelona. Say it with me, "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah".

Warm(er) weather, Christmas lights everywhere, and the hustle and bustle of a Mediterranean country I've been missing. Not to mention the chance to spend a 4 days on my own again, and to crash late-night in a youth hostel.

For two days with my folks, we saw possibly every existing site of Barcelona, from the Montjuic mountain that has the Olympic stadium and surrounding facilities (as well as a painful cactus garden), to Antonio Gaudi's numerous architectural feats from Case Mila to Parc Güell to the world-famous La Sagrada Familia. (For those of you that don't speak Spanish, that means "The Sagrada Familia")

The Sacred Family Cathedral is nuts, its a mix of architecture and colorless psychedelia, because the building is Gothic on one side only, and of a modernist style on the other; on the inside the columns look like trees to reflect the power and stability of nature's shapes. Very cool.

After two days of sightseeing with the 'rents, it was time to kick back and enjoy Barcelona the real way. So I checked into the Kabul hostel (possibly the best hostel in Europe) and within minutes I ran into this duder named Marco. Marco was my flatmate in Rome two years back and is travelling through Spain. A few hours later, we ran into another Rome flatmate, Adam Cramer, who is travelling through Spain. So myself, Marco's friends, and Adam's friends all went out for two nights looking for Sangria and nightclubs. We found awesome cheap Sangria, but the clubs all played bad European dance music (except for a sweet Beverly Hills Cop theme remix).

One night, we found an awesome club called "Indie Club" with a lady with giant, beautiful, openly visible breasts dancing on the bar near the door. Noticing all gay men inside, I looked up to the dancer and realized that she was a maaaaaaaaaaaan. Finkel is Einhorn kind of thing. Eventually a cool bar appeared in the mist, and it was blasting The Police for the rest of the night, all turned out well.

Back in Switzerland now, all is well.

Go Giants. They recently traded Edgardo "Fatty" Alfonzo for Steve "Giant Killer" Finley, check it out.

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Photos

Olympic Square
The futuristic radio tower looms over the city. I'm pretty sure it was made around the time of the '92 Olympics.

You call this the Olympics?
Nothing like checking out the hard bodies at Barcalona's 1992 Olympic Indoor Pool.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree
In this case, the Orange...

Hostel Chillers
Nothing like "vagabond conventions"

The View from My Hostel Window
onto Barcelona's Placa Reial

Swingers
Spanish Swingers.

Gaudi's Masterpiece
La Sagrada Familia, as you can see, is still under construction after 100-ish years.

Birds-Eye View of Barcelona...
From the towers of Antonio Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia.

Gadi's Ecstatic for Gaudi
Love 'em. Really! That's 100 feet up La Sagrada Familia.

Front of Gaudi's Casa Batllo
The three vertical columns there look like bones, coooooooool.

Gaudi, like myself....
is often known as a weird man. The pointed tips are CHIMNEYS to a building known to be like an underwater world.

Through the looking glass
I see too many Rachelsons.

Comments

[anonymous]

when are you coming home brada?

[Adam]

yoyoyo
Parq de Gadi cool pics especiall the one in the mirror

[Edi]

Finally I got your spanish blog. Thank you.

[Jay Lev]

Architectural Adage
Gadi's Goo-Goo for Gaudi

[Dani]

Hey sweet mirror pic. I'm totally jealous that you got to go to Spain, esp Barcelona. Such a cool town. Nice haircut btw.