Barcelona was everything I’ve dreamed it to be. I wasn’t pick-pocketed once (although I did have my purse zippered and clutched next to me at all times) and even though the forecast said it would rain all weekend, it didn’t. It was a four day trip (Wednesday-Saturday), so we did a montón de cosas (ton of things).
First Day:
We left Alcalá at 8:00 in the morning, headed for Barcelona.
We made our first stop in Saragoza to see the basilica and the cathedral (La Sea). Both were beautiful pieces of architecture. I didn’t take hardly any pictures here because we weren’t able to take pictures inside. La Sea had a floor full of ceiling to floor tapestries—it was mouth-dropping. I can’t imagine how long it must have taken to weave all the intricate details of the stories into tapestries of that size.
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| outside of La Sea. |
There’s a plaza right outside the basilica and the cathedral and there were probably 100 tents in the plaza. It was some kind of political protest. When the Spanish want to protest, they always congregate in the plaza. There have been quite a few protests going on lately, especially with the elections that just went on.
After we had gotten our fill of La Sea, we all piled back on the bus…and finally arrived in Barcelona around 8:00pm. We were STARVING. Our directors took us all out to eat at an Italian restaurant.
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| sometimes when we're REALLY impatient for our food, we're a LITTLE immature. (our entire table end participated. i just couldn't find any more embarrassing pictures) |
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| i ate pizza until i couldn't eat anymore...and then i ate ice cream. |
After dinner, we all walked Las Ramblas—a famous, albeit tourist-filled, street. It was full of street performers, musicians, mimes, venders, and lots of people trying to get you to come to their nightclub. You have to watch your purse, but the street feels so alive—and I loved that. A girl and I stopped to watch a group of break dancers put on a show—it was incredible.
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| las ramblas!! p.s. notice how i'm clutching my purse...nobody even TRIED to get in my things. |
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| barcelona thugs. uh...from byu? |
We decided that we wanted to take the metro home. Problem: it was almost midnight and that’s when the metro closes. We all rushed to buy tickets and as we were walking to our metro, we saw that we had barely a minute left. Hermana Stallings started yelling for us to run and so forty college kids rushed through the doors (on one ticket—the police weren’t too happy about that), ran down the stairs and escalators, arrived on the wrong side of the train, turned around, and sprinted to the right side. We could hear Hermana Stallings crying, “Chicos, chicos, corren, corren!” the entire time. I’ve never been a part of something so funny in my life. We were laughing so hard we almost cried.
I flooded the bathroom on the morning of day 2…our shower was so awful. I can’t count how many times I wrung out my towel to mop up the floor. But after that experience, and after a good continental breakfast, I got back on the bus with my group and we took a bus tour, pointing out some interesting things as we were driving by (like the outsides of the houses Antonio Guadi designed). We also drove by la Plaza Catalunya, which is famous for its political protests…this weekend was no exception.
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| political protesting--like I was saying, the Spanish are pros. |
Our first stop was at Park Güell, designed by Antonio Guadi (a famous architect—very modern—and INCREDIBLE. I love his work). He had a vision of a community of houses where nature was prominent. Originally, there was supposed to be 70 houses, but only two were constructed.
There were tons of people trying to sell necklaces, earrings, sunglasses, scarves, etc. even though they weren’t supposed to be there. A police car showed up and I’ve never seen a place empty so fast. I was in the process of buying a pair of earrings and the man muttered “Dios mío,” grabbed the earrings, his stand, and fled. After the police left, the man found me again and offered me the same earrings. I bought them.
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| Park Guell--soo cool |
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| exterior of the cathedral. |
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| Pictures just don't do the interior of this cathedral justice. |
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| more of the inside. |
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| something that's really distinguishes this cathedral from the rest is the amount of light that enters through all the windows. |
We also went to el Museo Nacional de Arte de Catalunya (Museum of National Art of Catalunya). We only had a little over an hour, so we just went to the modern art section. Modern art is still a mystery to me. I’m not sure why I like it. Maybe because it’s something you have to feel instead of understand. It’s a puzzle.
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| picture 1: view of barcelona from the museo picture 2: museo nacional de arte de catalunya |
After this museum, we went to another museum—the Joan Miró foundation. It has a lot of Joan’s work, as well as a couple pieces from other similar artists…so…a lot of modern art. I really really enjoyed this museum. It was super interesting. He worked during the civil war in Spain and at first there is a lot of realism…but after a while, he used his art as a way to escape from the cruel reality of war (escapism)—and created a collection of pieces on constellations, stars, the universe…which I loved.
By this time, it was probably around eight again…and we were starving. We went back to the same Italian restaurant, I ate pasta, and then we all returned to the hotel. We were all pretty tired so we didn’t go out. I hung out in Audi and Aubrey’s hotel room and told scary/funny stories until we were so tired that we had to go to bed.
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El primer día, antes de Barcelona, parramos en Zaragoza. Vimos una basílica y una catedral se llama La Seo. Los dos tienen arquitectura muy hermosa. La Seo especialmente me gustó. Tenía un cuarto de tapices muy grandes—eran increíbles. Tenían tantos detalles y fueron hechos hace siglos. Afuera de estos dos edificios en la plaza había muchas tiendas de campaña.
Cuando finalmente llegamos en Barcelona, teníamos tanta hambre y nuestros directores nos llevaron a un restaurante italiano. Después de comer pizza y helado, fuimos a las Ramblas—una calle muy famosa con muchos turistas, músicos, mimos y artistas. Fue muy divertido.
El segundo día teníamos una gira y vimos muchas cosas de Barcelona por autobús. Fuimos a Parque Güell para ver las obras de Gaudí y compré algunos aretes. También vimos La Sagrada Familia, la obra maestra de Guadí. El exterior del edificio es increíble, pero el interior…es difícil encontrar las palabras describirlo. Hay mucha luz y mucho simbolismo.
Después fuimos a dos museos—el Museo Nacional de Arte de Catalunya y Joan Miró Foundation. En los dos yo vi arte moderno, pero me gustó el Joan Miró Foundation más. Después de ver estos dos museos, eran las ocho y fuimos al mismo restaurante italiano.
Todos estábamos muy cansados y por eso, no salimos esta noche. Pasamos la noche en el cuarto de Audi y Aubrey.
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