Relaxing in a park.
The dinning room in the hostel
As I mentioned before we got into Barcelona July 4th at night. We checked into our hostel (Dream, Be Hostels Barcelona), walked to a grocery store, ate dinner and sulked. We decided to just sleep in the next day and then walk around a little. We walked down the boardwalk and the weather was wonderfully hot! While we were walking we saw a guy sitting under a tree. He looked familiar, I looked again and it was John, one of the Canadians we met in Rome a week ago while waiting for the bus at 4AM! We talked to him for a while. He is touring for 3 months and said he was getting kinda over it. He is going to be an industrial architect so he was going to sketch some statues and buildings while he waited for his 10pm fairy to Ibiza.
Street performance and Greg on Las Ramblas
I want all my olives to come like this!
Outside the Barcelona Aquarium...Look familiar Kaylyssa?
After we walked around for a while, down Las Ramblas and around the museum island we decided to go watch the fountain music and light show at the base of MontJuic. We caught the last 15 minutes of the show and it was pretty amazing. The peddling goods of choice at this tourist spot happened to be light up glasses and single beers from a six pack. My favorite part of the fountain show was when they made it really misty and it looked like blue and purple clouds floating around the fountain! The performance was to classical music that you could hear for about 10 blocks.
All at the Magic Fountain
The next day we went on the Fat Tire Bike tour. Here's some stuff we learned:
-There are over two hundred different saint's body parts in the Barcelona cathedral.
-The Catalan flag is the oldest in Europe...it dates to 1040. It is supposedly representing when King Harry was wounded in battle and another guy put his hand on his wound and dragged his four fingers across his gold shield. Hence, the yellow flag with four red stripes (however the two people in the legend lived hundreds of years apart).
-Queen Isabella and her weak uninvolved husband King Ferdinand led to the downfall of Catalonia.
-Columbus asked the queen two times to finance his trip around the world. Finally the third time she said yes, perhaps due to his daring personality and strikingly handsome face?
-When he marched back up her steps a year later she instantly took credit for the discovery, since she financed it, and allowed only Castilian Spain (where Queen Isabella was from) to trade with the new world.
Greg running up the same steps that Columbus ran up after finding the new world.
-Catalan lost independence and became part of Spain. Franco wanted all of Spain to have a national identity and made it illegal to speak Catalan or practice Catalanian traditions (you were executed for speaking Catalan in the streets).
-'Spanish' traditions were brought in and forced on the people, such as bull fighting. When Franco died on November 20th 1975 a party in the streets instantly broke out and lasted for 3 days...until all the alcohol in Barcelona was consumed.
Red paint on the last functioning bull fighting arena in Barcelona
-Barcelona zoo was home of the only albino gorilla in captivity up until a few years ago when he passed away from skin cancer. No joke!
-Don't worry though he had a good last couple of months. He had an endless supply of girl gorillas in hopes of another baby albino being born. None were though.
By the enterance to the zoo.
-Nakedness is completely legal in Barcelona...complete and only complete nakedness. If for example you have a scarf on, or just a shirt it's illegal. As is flashing. Gotta give the people fair warning I guess. We saw people utilizing this freedom quite a bit on the beaches and once on the boardwalk!
-The Sangrada Familia was Antonio Gaudi's baby. Construction began in 1832 and except for a couple decades off for the war there has been almost continuous construction on the building. There is a clear difference between the work Gaudi did and the work after his death because even though he left plans, he was always changing his plans.. The architects decided that instead of doing a great injustice by trying to do 'Gaudi' architecture they would make it an obvious contrast. They did so by making the faces and surfaces very angular and severe. They are planning on building 10 more towers with the tallest one representing Jesus to be 169 meters. This is double the existing tallest tower's height and it is one meeter shorter than the tallest point on MontJuic. This is because Gaudi said he didn't want to make anything taller than God's own creation (the mountain bordering Barcelona). The supposed finish date is in 2025 which almost no one is holding their breath for.
The fruit in this picture is made of Vanitian glass...so smooth that rain is all it needs to be cleaned.
Hanging out infront of the Temple, the dark part is what Gaudi saw finished.
-Gaudi was building this church for the common person and the poor. He felt there was a real disconnect between the churches and the general people. That is why it is an independently funded project (it has never been paid for by the government or the church). This is also why it is a temple, because any denomination can apparently worship in a temple. This brings me to Gaudi's death.
-Gaudi for the last 12 years of his life was living in the Sangrada Familia and was for all intensive purposes a hermit. He worked on plans and constructed models and rarely left the temple. One day he went out for something or another and he got hit by a tram. Now this did not kill him. He had a scraggly beard and haggard clothes on him and for a day he sat on the side of the street and people refused to help him thinking he was just some bum. The next day he finally got a taxi to take him to the hospital, but looking like he did they took him to the worst hospital where all the poor people went. There he sat again for almost a full day. On the third day someone walking past recognized him and immediately offered to take him to the best hospital right away where he would most likely have recovered. Gaudi's last words were, “No, I think I'll die here with the poor.” Which he did... a few days latter. He was building that temple for poor people and in the end he wanted to die among them. Gaudà died in that hospital 5 days after the accident on June 12, 1926, at the age of 74. And that too is where he is buried.
While on the bike tour we made friends with two Canadians, Igor and Erin (they were not traveling together, it just turns out that everyone we met was either Canadian or from Texas!). So after the tour we decided to go get something to eat and then go watch a movie on MontJuic. We met Igor's friend Roy and got some paella...YUM! Igor was on the phone much of the time trying to buy train tickets for the following day. When he came back he said, “...playing minds on my tricks” we gave him a hard time and he said his brain was all mixed up from speaking Spanish for an hour on the phone. Igor is originally from Panama. Then we went up MontJuic where they were playing No Country for Old Men (with Catalan subtitles) on the side of the castle! We had some snacks and drinks and they even had free mats for the grass! Now to get in, Roy was pretty sure he knew a way that wasn't checking tickets. After a hike up a mountain in the forest where we were crawling and grabbing on to plants to keep from falling....we still all ended up paying 5 Euros. The movie was really fun, the whole old mote area was filled with people and we even had our pack towels for the beach we used as blankets!
Paella and Sangria...Yum!
Sunset from MontJuic and getting settled in for the movie!
The Sangrada Familia is in the background.
When the movie was over at around midnight we walked back down to the bus stop on the mountain. We missed the bus right before us and it was packed to extreme capacity as it lurched forward and away down the mountain. We were near the front of the new line for the bus and as we got on there was already just standing room. I noticed a little rail and said to Greg, “Oh, look a Kevina sized space!” and squeezed in between the rail and the backs of the seats. So the bus ride is not too bad and we stop at the bottom of the mountain near the Magic Fountain. Well, when the doors go to open Greg starts screaming...His had is caught between the door and the frame. We both push against it freeing his hand. We don't have time to celebrate or check for injuries because that 'Kevina-sized-space' turned out to be for the doors to fling into and now I am pinned, full body against the rail and I am quite concerned I might die! Greg, myself, and a couple other helpful hands that appeared out of nowhere, start pushing on the door. We are able to push the door back enough for me to squeeze out (very painfully might I add). After which the door SLAMS back into the space where I was once standing! I do a quick once over for any serious injuries and after discovering only a small bruise on my ankle I thank my lucky stars that I survived...and my strong husband too :). After a long, slow walk escorting one of our new friends back to the bus stops, we got on ours and went to bed exhausted!
Yay for movies on the side of castles!
The next day we decided to pack another picnic and head out to the beach for a good part of the day. There were men selling coke, water, or beer from these identical blue coolers. One man kept saying' “Da-doo, da-doo, da-doo!!” really fast and loud while pushing his cooler in peoples' faces. I do not know what word he was actually trying to say but it was funny hearing that echo down the beach as he tried to make some money. We saw another guy selling drinks that quickly laid down and took off his shirt (and put it over his cooler). A few moments later we understood why. A cop came up and after a few words and a very feeble attempt from the peddler to dispute it, the cop took the cooler! They guy only got his shirt back after a little yelling match! Afterwards we went and played on MontJuic some more and walked around the castle. On our way to the castle we saw a one legged, naked man taking a shower on the beach. Not a tan line to speak of. And that....is Barcelona.
This had a working fountain!
Finicula to MontJuic...the man made beaches for the 92 olympics.
Feeding a stray cat off the side of the castle.
I think I knew Columbus asked the Queen three times before his trip was financed. Ha ha! The things we remember, it had to have been back in elementary school.
ReplyDeleteHey Guys,
ReplyDeleteI like your little corner of the internet. Nice pics, good spelling too.
Igor
Thanks...sorry sorry sorry about your name. I fixed it as soon as Greg told me. I don't know what I was thinking! Hope the rest of your trip was good:)
ReplyDelete