Barcelona

Thursday, April 1st
Took the Ave speed train to Barcelona and arrived around 2:30pm then proceeded to wander around the streets of Barcelona looking for my family because they couldn't be waiting for me at the hotel like every other family. By wandering around by myself, I got a full tour of Les Rambles (the main road with an abundance of shops, restaurants and street entertainment) and the port before they could even figure out where they were. After finally finding them, we stopped for lunch and were watched like a movie by "creepy guy in the green shirt sitting at the bar." That's the thing about the Spanish- they have absolutely no problem with blatantly staring at you. After lunch, we walked to see the Cathedral, a prime example of Gothic influences in Barcelona. That night we ate dinner at Citrus, where they had eaten the night before. Thanks to my excellent Spanish translation, we discovered that Lisa's delicious steak dinner was actually "buey" better know as bull. Haha- gross!

Friday, April 2nd
Prepare for a day of walking and boy, did we walk- Barcelona is full of many modernist sites and I only had a day to see them. After the delicious hotel breakfast, we headed to the first stop of the day- Park Güell, one of Antoni Gaudí's works. This project was first intended to be a large elite residential estate, but there were only two buyers. As a result, Gaudí turned the area into a magical park marked by the use of trencadís or broken pottery, similar to a mosaic design. The entrance to the park has two unique gatehouses with roofs covered in trencadís. They had a fairytale appeal and looked almost like gingerbread houses. These house represent good and evil and the cross on one house is higher as to symbolize good rising above evil. The park's icon is a salamander decorated in the same mosaic style- it is practically impossible to get a picture with this guy. The main square has a wavy bench again covered with the broken pottery.

Next, we went to see la Sagrada Família, a church by Gaudí that can be seen from all over Barcelona. This church was originally destined to be a traditional Gothic church, but when Gaudí took over the project, he implemented his modernist styles. There are two main façades- one depicted the passion of Christ and the other, the birth. It was interesting to see the two different styles in both façades. We also waited on line for 45 minutes to climb the tower, which was not all it was cracked up to be. This church continues to be construction and will hopefully be finished in time for the centennial anniversary of Gaudí. After wandering around the church, we had lunch at a delicious pizza place. Took a quick pit stop at the hotel and headed out again to take the cable cars to Monjüic and see the castle. It was really cool, but really windy. Got some good pics of course. On the way back, I took the family to Maoz, a falafel vegetarian restaurant. It was well-liked except by Katie so she got churros and chocolate.

Saturday, April 3rd
The family left early in the morning so I joined the group. We visited the Picasso Museum. It was really interesting to see the progression of Picasso's works and how his like influenced his painting at different time periods. His version of Las Meninas, a painting originally by Velasquez, was most impressive and really showed his style while maintaining the natural composition. After the museum, we had free time until catching the train again. Chelsea and I did some shopping and found whole wheat pasta in a Chinese restaurant called Wok to Walk- so delicious!