Barcelona

Pictures

On Friday morning, I woke up at 4:45am to finish packing / getting ready for my weekend trip to Barcelona.  I grabbed the first metro at 6:00am to get myself to the train station to make my 7:00am train.  By 10:30am I had arrived in Barcelona and was on the metro heading towards a friend of a friend's apartment in L'Eixample, which was only a short walk from the metro stop.  At this moment I thought I was tired...I had no idea.

My travel companions had arrived the night before, and were still wrapped up in blankets on the tile floor when I arrived and began bugging them to get up so we could fit as much as possible in to our short time in Barcelona.  Before too long all were washed, fed, and on our way to La Rambla, a famous pedestrian boulevard in the Barri Gòtic.  Despite the hype, I was under impressed with this leg of our journey.  The perhaps most interesting part for me of La Rambla was all of the baby animals waiting in cages to be sold.  There were the typical baby bunnies and hamsters, but as we continued down the row, there were less typical pets, such as roosters and even pigeons.

Before long we turned eastwards off of La Rambla to hunt down La Catedral, which, like many of the sights were to be, was under construction.  Despite the lack of views of the facade (or perhaps because of said lack), the entrance fee was 5€ so we decided to trek onwards in search of the Esglèsia de Santa Maria del Mar and the Museu Picasso.

On our way, however, we were distracted by a particularly delicious looking smoothie stop, and once we had all paid 5€ for our smoothies (apparently smoothies trump cathedral entrance fees), we settled down in the nearby Plaça del Rei.  It was here that we noticed the Museu d'Història de la Ciutat, and a quick look in our guidebooks promised an intriguing and enlightening visit.  It was also here, however, that what ended up becoming a trend throughout our weekend began: the museum was closed, but would open again later.

We decided to come back after making it to our next two destinations, but, like the museum before it, the Esglèsia was closed as well.  Luckily for us, the Picasso museum was open, and (though I cannot say this for certain as I never made it to the other two closed sights) it thoroughly made up for our other missed goals.  The museum is made up of Picasso's work laid out chronologically throughout the museum.  It does not have any significant amount of pieces of his more famous periods (the Blue Period,  the Rose Period, or Cubism) but it does do a magnificent job of demonstrating the progression of his style.  This museum is a must for anyone visiting Barcelona.

After this stop, we made our way back to the history museum, only to be told that it was going to close in twenty minutes, so we shrugged our shoulders and headed back to the apartment to rest up for the night ahead.  The highlight of the night was visiting Dow Jones Bar, where the prices of the drinks change depending on demand, and sometimes the "market crashes" and everyone rushes the bar to buy the drinks cheaply before the prices start going up again.  After this, the five people that live in the apartment, the seven of us from my program with which I'd spent the day, and two additional people from our program with whom we had just met up went back to the apartment to sprawl out on the tile floor and sleep as much as possible.

The next day was dedicated to Gaudí.  By midday our group made it to Park Güell, the Gaudí designed park, which had initially been planned to be a luxury neighborhood.  It is a steep climb to get up to the park from the back (which is where we entered), but thank goodness for the outdoor escalators that assist with some part of the way.  The view from the top was amazing, one can see all across the city and the ocean from there, and it quickly made up for our exertion trying to climb our way up.

Once inside the park, we wandered around attempting to take in all that Gaudí had created, with his curving lines, bright mosaic work, and influences varying from Roman architecture to fruit.  Before long, however, it was time for us to head back into the city to see what, for me, is the most recognizable monument in Barcelona: La Sagrada Familia.

This cathedral has been under construction since 1882, and it is not expected to be completed before 2026.  Nonetheless, its magnificence is evident despite the scaffolding, cranes, and tarps surrounding it.  Apparently the eastern façade is more representative of Gaudí's work, yet I actually found the western side, the Passion façade, to be more compelling.  The stark, angulated figures below, and the bright, almost goofy colors above enchanted me, not only by their distinct beauties, but also by the contrast between the two sections.  We were going to enter into the cathedral to perhaps go up to the top, but, lo and behold, they closed just as we arrived.

At this point I went back to the apartment to rest and read, and before long the rest of the group had wandered back out to see a fountain and lights show.  Everything I have heard about this show sounds amazing, but I knew that in order to make it through the night, I needed to get off of my feet for a couple hours.

We spent the night playing games around the apartment, until we headed out to Razzmatazz, an enormous club, around 2:30am.  I'm sure it goes without saying that I only got about an hour of sleep before I had to, very groggily, pack up, get dressed, and hop on the train back to Madrid.

Barcelona is amazing, and I am looking forward to my next chance to return.  Unlike many other members of our program, it has been important to me to avoid traveling out of Madrid so that I can really dedicate myself to getting to know the city and its people.  Nonetheless, I have absolutely no regrets about taking a break from my home city to visit this wondrous place.

Un beso.