La Sagrada Familia was amazing. It is a huge church and we started on the side with the façade made by Gaudi. Obviously it is very religious, and has lots of Christian figures carved into it. There was so much detail and so much going on one could look at it for a very long time. It was carved in stone too which seemed very different for me compared to a lot of the other things we have seen. There are also 12 very tall towers in the church representing the 12 apostles.
The inside really surprised me because I didn’t know what to expect. There were columns everywhere to create the image of being in a forest. The inside was equally well decorated in interesting ways with different walls having different modern designs and large stained glass windows and spiral stair cases. We couldn’t get to all of it because of the construction, but it seems like it will be an amazing place to visit when it is done. Rick Steves says in his book, “If there is one building in the world that I would like to see, it’s the Sagrada Familia… finished”.
Lunch was at a restaurant next to the park made by Gaudi, and just plain bad. It was probably chosen because of it’s location, but outside it had pictures of the food and said “fast food / comida rapida”. It took 2 ½ hours for all of us to get our food because they only had 2 waiters in the entire place. (We took up all the tables except for 3) Blah salad, bland dry chicken with an egg on top or a cheap lasagna, a drink, and a dessert.
But after lunch we had a small tour of Parc Guell the one designed and created by Gaudi. It was supposed to be a park and a fancy area for rich people to live, but people just didn’t want to move there. I really like Gaudi and his art. It is very modern with lots of colors and designs, and just a lot that one wouldn’t expect to see at all. There is the famous dragon that people use to say that Gaudi might have been part of the masons, two houses that look like gingerbread houses, a plaza with curved seats covered in broken tiles in designs, and lots of paths throughout all of it an lots of greenery. The paths are even art with different covered areas with cool designs and ceilings with the rocks.
We had free time after that when I walked around the park with some friends and then we headed back to Casa Batlló. The outside is simply amazing with its designs and colors. There are parts that look like bones, trees and masks. Gaudi took a lot from nature for his ideas, and used almost no straight lines in the entire place. The inside is decorated with as much care and detail as the outside so I’m really glad that we decided to return.
All the rooms are different with lots of color, and there are areas in the middle to let in natural light. The windows are smaller at the top and larger at the bottom to have equal light in each level of the building, and the color of the tiles gradually changes from nearly white at the bottom to a dark blue at the top so it appears to be all the same with the sunlight coming in. The roof was also amazing with a part that looked like a dragon, and then the chimneys had been turned into castle type things so they made the house look better rather than the usually ugliness of chimneys on buildings.
After that most of us headed to a free exhibit at the other house by Gaudi nearby. This was called Mariscal at la Pedrera that featured the works of Javier Mariscal. I didn’t know what to expect or who the artist was but it was a lot of fun to see. A little bit random and modern with lots of bright colors and interesting designs yet again. It started with a room filled with early sketches covering the walls and coming down in columns creating a maze to walk through and then it went to a part with letters and fonts that he created for his art and as art. The next part was graphic art on the street, which was posters, bags, magazine covers and other things that he had created and gotten printed. Later there was a little exhibit with drawing that were cut out and turned into 3D and set in boxes or scenery or other 3D art pieces. Finally there was a bit of a film section but we didn’t get to see it because the people working there told us we had to leave, even though it was 7 minutes before the official closings.
After that we went out to dinner together. Not being able to go to the first place we wanted to that listed milkshakes, chicken nuggets and guacamole on its sign outside the door, we ended up at an Italian restaurant which was absolutely delicious! The pizzas were thin crust with just the right amount of ingredients, and for the people who got pasta that was also really good. Some of us had been told by our art professor that we had to try cava (champagne) and crema de cataluña, which is like a crème brulee. We headed out and found another restaurant that had both of those so went in. It seemed like a nicer place and the price for their “menu of the day” was about 20 euros compared to the usual 10 euros at touristy places so it was definitely higher quality. Without much money on me I opted to not have the champagne and split an apple pie type dessert with Kelly. Delicious.
Then we headed out to find the rest of the people in our program who were going out at Espit Chupitos. Chupito means shot, and it is a chain type place all over Spain. They probably have at least 100 different shots, each for 2 euros, and it isn’t just a shot but a show. Most of them include fire and or other props. But it is all very safe and controlled with the bartenders having a lot of practice and knowing exactly what they are doing. The first one I did with people had a circle of fire around it that then went on top of the shots that we then had to drink very quickly with a straw.
Most of my night was just hanging out with people there, but later I did one that included half of the outside of an orange where some sort of substance they put on top was lit on fire, then we drank the first half of the shot out of the orange and then the rest of it an the juice from the orange was squeezed into the second half of the shot that was left in the shot glass. Then I did one last one later in the night along with 3 other people where there was a shot glass in a bowl with the shot and more around it that was set on fire. Then a larger glass was set on top of the shot glass and with the fire it all went up into the glass and the fire went out. When the glass was removed the liquid fell back down filling up the shot glass that we had to drink quickly with a straw and then inhale out of the larger glass that had a vacuum in it that the bartender lady was keeping covered with her hand to hold it in. It was a fun show, but I’m pretty sure that the alcohol there wasn’t as strong as normal hard alcohol.
Then to finish off the night we headed back to the first restaurant we tried to go to and just hung out there in a calmer environment for a while with one of the girls from Barcelona and some people shared cold tapas or chocolate magdalenas which are chocolate muffins because the kitchen was closed. We got back to the hotel about 2:30 after a very fun and full day.
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