Barcelona

12-16

Barcelona

Great day, the city is absolutely gorgeous. It rained off and on all day, which stank but ehhh what are you going to do? Traveling by myself if kinda strange. Not sure how I feel about it. It’s nice cause I get to places really quick, but not so much fun cause I don’t have anyone to joke around with.

Woke up early and headed out – after my free breakfast. First I went to the Roman Wall. It’s pretty much just an old wall, but that it’s been there since Roman times is pretty amazing. Today is the local hang out for pigeons as far as I could tell.

Then I made my way to the City Basilica. I’m sure it’s beautiful from the outside but they had it all blocked off for restoration. The inside though is a very cool courtyard with many little chapels each with a very cool statue with candles that can be lit on the outside. All of the statues are behind bars, which I must admit is a little disconcerting but I guess you do what you have to. The center of the courtyard is filled with giant palm trees. Right now they have a nativity scene with live chickens, geese and ducks. It’s really cool. There are actually nativities all over the city which is nice.

Then I made my way up the Ramblas which is a giant boulevard with an open air market in the middle famous for its flower and bird stands. It was really really cool. Outside one of the bird sands I saw a pigeon eating another birds food through the bars, this just didn’t seem fair.

Right off the Ramblas is an open air food market. It was massive. Everything you could possibly want, meat, fruit, vegetables, seafood, everything. It was really cool just to walk around. I thought it might have been a cool Idea to get lunch there but it was still really early so I didn’t do that.

Then I walked up the Ramblas till I bit the Catalonia Square. Barcelonans don’t actually consider themselves Spanish, but rather a separate nationality called Catalonian’s. I had no idea. Pretty cool though. They have a big square celebrating their history.

After this I headed up the road and took pictures of a bunch of buildings by an architect named Gaudi. He was famous at the turn of the century and has a series of just some beautiful buildings. They’re all very curvy and modern. Hard to describe but look at my facebook for pictures. My two favorite Gaudi’s were Parke Guell and Sagrada la Familia.

Park Guell is a park designed by Gaudi originally meant to be a rich housing estate. It’s filled with almost fairy tale architecture – including two gingerbread houses and a mosaic lizard.

Sagrada la Familia is Gaudii’s “masterpiece. It’s a massive cathedral with 12 towers – one for each apostle. It also has two styles – the front is very modern the back is very … well I’m not so sure but maybe gothic? In any case the back side is filled with tiny little sculptures of bible stories that are put into the sides of the building.

After Sagrada la Familia I made my way to Monteju….. not sure how to spell it. Translated though it means “the Jew hill. It’s this massive park were the Barcelona Jewish Ghetto was before they knocked it down to make way for the Olympics. It’s a massive and beautiful hill that’s today just one giant park. It looks out over the Mediterranean on one side and the city on the other.

That night I stayed in my hostel with some kids from Canada, the states, Brazil, and Australia (they’re everywhere). Good night, and wonderful day.