La Vida Española Part 4: Barcelona is Catalán for Barcelona

So... I know I said I´d write about Salamanca in this next post, but I think I have to write about Barcelona instead. It´s pretty much the coolest. Well, no, it´s not; it´s really humid and it´s full of people and I had had enough of those 2 things after 48 hours; but the ART! Holy majoly! And, in addition, there was the coolest bookstore I´ve yet seen in Europe. It almost rivals Shakespeare´s in Madison, Wisconsin. Almost.

We--my new friend from the trip, Brittany (from Carson-Newman College in Tennessee) and myself--went to Barcelona Thursday after class (by Renfe train--woo.hoo.) and stayed till midday Sunday, when we headed "home". It´s a curious thing how relieved I was to be back in Segovia; it is home, at least temporarily. At least it´s familiar, and smaller, and friendlier.

Our first full day in Barcelona was spent first at La Sagrada Familia and later at Las Ramblas and the Egyptian Museum. La Sagrada Familia was, without a doubt, the most amazing thing I have seen in Spain, and comes close to being the coolest thing I´ve seen in Europe. It´s absolutely breathtaking. I hope it´s finished before I die so I can go see it. The place was designed by Antonio Gaudí (who is fast becoming one of my most favourite creative minds of all time), who died in a freak trolley (I think) accident shortly after being given charge of the project. The church has now been under construction for 125 years--it is Europe´s Taj Majal, fo´reals. Here are some pictures of the exterior:

This is what the finished church will look like:


Gaudí is known as the master of modernisme, and took his design inspiration from nature. So the inside of the cathedral, for instance, looks like a canopy of trees, when you look up. It´s freaking unbelievable:


We went to the top of the completed spires for an incredible view of Barcelona. Perhaps I´ll be able to post those pictures soon....

We proceeded from La Sagrada Familia to La Pedrera, another building designed by Gaudí that you will all recognize as the emblematic picture of Barcelona (and to some, Spain).

We didn´t go in, but rather continued on down Las Ramblas, which is a series of streets positively FILLED with people, vendors, stores, street performers, music and all manner of diversions. It´s an incredible strip of city. There is an incredible covered open air market popularly called "La Boquería" (Mercat Sant Josep in Catalán, properly) where I actually managed to encounter ORGANIC VEGETARIAN FOOD! Oh happy day! These Arabs ran this booth that sold crepes filled with cous cous, carrots, eggplant, olives, tahini, and every other kind of excellent Mediterranean food you can imagine. It was like being home, eating that stuff again. Ahhh... And at this market there are all these booths selling EVERYTHING, but especially fresh fruit juices (I tried, over the course of two days, Kiwi, Papaya, Mango and Coconut--all fantastic) AND fresh coconut pieces, a whole pack for only €1! It was the best dessert ever. Pretty much. Here´s a picture of the market:


The next day we went to the Parque Güell, which requires it´s own blog entry, fer real. Google-image it and see what happens. It´s freaking unbelievable, and not surprisingly therefore, also designed by Gaudí. We also went to the Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona, which was really cool. Outside was a multitdue of skateboard kids making a hel of a racket and using the front of the museum as a skate park, which I thought was pretty cool in a Bohemian kind of way. Inside the museum we only saw the permanent collection, which was inCREDible. Among the highlights were two art films, one Italian and one German, of which I did not watch in their entireties, for fear of driving Brittany out of her mind (not a "contemporary art" kind of gal, but she was very open-minded about the whole thing nonetheless). There was also an incredible slide show piece that was a series of photos from the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Well... I have more to say on Barcelona, but not much money left on my internet time. More to come folks. See you in 11 days!!!!! Woo hoo.