BARCELONA!!!!!

NOTE:  If you want to see all my pictures, or the 138 I posted, check out my Facebook album.  If you really want to see all of them, ask me when I'm home!

That's right, I went to Barcelona this weekend.  And it was great!!! I absolutely love the city, the architecture, the food, everything!  This is going to be a long post, but be prepared for the awesomeness that was Barcelona.

We left at 10am Friday morning (no class, yay!!), but that was after only 4 hours of sleep for me.  I went out with people Thursday night, and although we didn't really end up doing anything other than people watching, quite a bit of walking, and lots of being indecisive, it was still a late night.  Luckily I had a 4 hour bus ride to sleep... Except I didn't sleep much - oops!  Instead we watched Slumdog Millionaire and Avengers and I chatted with Julia.

Anna, Grace, Maisie, Jordan, Me, Julia

Before I continue, let me tell you who exactly I hung out with this weekend, since their names might be coming up a lot.  I shared a hotel room with Jordan and Julia.  All three of us are in Cultures and Civ together, and Julia also has Art with me.  We then hung out with the other triple - Anna, Grace, and Maisie.  These three just finished SPAN 2010 (gooo you guys!) and are starting SPAN 2020.  We had a funny group, with Jordan and I being the mother hens since the others are all a year younger.

La Sagrada Familia (Nativity Facade)

Now back to Barcelona.  We arrived at the hotel around 3, and after checking in and having a bit of a siesta we were off to La Sagrada Familia.  This was beautiful!!  Absolutely gorgeous.  And guess what, it's not done yet.  Construction began in 1882, and here we are in 2013 and it's still not done.  Most of this is due to financing, but finally things are moving and construction is getting closer.  It's supposed to be finished in 2030, and I'm already planning on going back when everything's done.

Details of the Nativity Facade

La Sagrada Familia was designed by Antoni Gaudí and he worked on it his entire life.  He's even buried in the crypt there.  The entire building is one big piece of symbolism.  First, there are 3 entrances - the Nativity Facade, the Passion Facade and the Glory Facade.  Each is done in a different style and represents a different part of Jesus' life.  The Nativity Facade is probably the one most photographed, since it was finished first.This side celebrates the birth of Jesus, and is covered with intricate sculptures of the nativity story from the gospels.  The Passion Facade was the second to be built, and this side represents his crucifixion.

The Passion Facade

The style of the Passion Facade is a lot less decorative than the Nativity Facade.  The Nativity Facade faces east, and the Passion Facade faces west, which just adds to the effects of both.  The third facade is the Glory one.  This one will be the main entrance of the Sagrada Familia once it is built, but for now it's still under construction.

Each entrance has 4 bell towers, making 12 total, to symbolize the twelve disciples.  In a loop that is closer to the center stand 4 taller towers.  These represent the 4 evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  In the very center, the tallest tower of them all represents Jesus.  This tower will be almost as high as the highest point in Barcelona.  And there is one more tower, just outside the evangelists towers, and a bit shorter.  This one represents the Virgin Mary.  So far they've built 8 of the 12 bell towers, and they're working on the tower for Mary and the bases of the evangelist towers.

The "tree" columns

Inside the building is absolutely gorgeous!  Unlike most churches, this one has a ton of light!!!  That's because Gaudí made his design based on nature instead of using the straight edges and corners that most architects of his time used.  What this means is that he used the trees to design the columns inside la Sagrada Familia.  These columns, like trees, have their roots in the floor and branch up to the top.  If one column falls down, none of the others will, just like trees.  Also, these columns completely support the structure of the building, meaning the walls don't need to support any weight and can be windows from the

Some of the stained glass windows

floor to the ceiling.  With these windows, there is light everywhere!  What's really cool is that they're all stained glass (or at least are going to be.  They aren't all finished but when we were there one had been finished the day before.  The colors of the stained glass are chosen by the way the light shines through them, casting colors onto the floors and creating a calming and pretty atmosphere.  To add more light, all of the towers have windows in them and will funnel light into the building.

The Crypt

There's also a balcony stretching around the perimeter for the choir.  It can hold almost 1000 people (that's a big choir).  I was also able to go down into the crypt.  I mentioned that Gaudí is buried there, but I didn't say that this is also beautiful.  Gaudí, when he was commissioned in 1883, he decided to make the crypt 4 feet higher than the original architect intended so that more light could get in.  Gaudí was originally hired because the original architect wanted to design a building that was too expensive.  Gaudí came in saying he could do it cheaper, but wanted to do it exactly how he wanted.  In reality, this building is probably a lot more expensive than the original.

The Crypt

Okay, so I could keep on going on and on about this building, but we did a lot of other things in Barcelona as well.  If you want to read more about the Sagrada Familia, look here!  I'd recommend the History, Symbology or Architecture sections.

Okay, so Friday night was a relatively low key night.  We walked around Las Ramblas, a tree lined street in central Barcelona that stretches between Plaza Catalunya and the Christopher Columbus monument.  It's pretty much a tourist place, with lots of restaurants, stores, etc.  We got dinner, wandered around, ate ice cream, and went back to the hotel to get some sleep before Saturday.

Saturday started off with a delicious array for breakfast.  We were actually surprised how much food was available since Spain doesn't really do breakfast.  For example, at home I eat toast every morning for breakfast.  At the hotel, I had kiwi, pastries, bread and jam, sausage, ham, cheese, and orange juice, plus they had a ton more food.  After breakfast, we hopped on the bus to take a tour of the city.

Panorama of Barcelona

During this tour, we passed some of the best known spots in Barcelona.  We saw some of Gaudí's most famous work (like Casa Batlló and Casa Mila), the Olympic Park, and the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña.  We got out at Olympic Park to take pictures, and stopped again at the highest point in Barcelona to admire the panoramic view of the city.  It was sweet seeing everything from that high up, and being able to pick out la Sagrada Familia from way up there (it wasn't hard, that building is HUGE!).

Park Güell

We also stopped for awhile at Park Güell.  This, of course, is another work of Gaudí.  Originally a part of housing project which hoped to create a neighborhood/garden, the project failed, but the works that remained were turned into a park years later.  Once again, the architecture of these structures is gorgeous.  I'm not going to describe the park too much, instead just posting pictures, but one thing that was really neat is the music.  There were different parts of the park that had live performers, and these performers were great. What I found out later was that these musicians are all over Barcelona.  They have to audition in order to be allowed to perform, and then on Monday each

the Park Güell salamander

performer chooses where they want to be for the week, setting up there every day and playing until the following Monday comes and places change.  The styles were all different, but if I had time I could have just sat and listened to them play.  Unfortunately there wasn't enough time, and I wanted to explore the park (and get my picture taken with the salamander!).

La Boqueria

After the bus tour, my group and I went back to Las Ramblas for some lunch and an afternoon of exploring and shopping.  I added to my pile of presents for people, and bought a few things for myself (including a scarf... I'm going to become a scarf person!).  We went to la Boqueria (Barcelona's market), too, and saw all sorts of fish, meat, fruits, and other foods.

Ice Barcelona, with the Ice Sagrada Familia

Saturday night, after a yummy dinner at an Italian restaurant, everyone except for Grace went to Ice Barcelona.  This is a bar, on the beach, made completely of ice.  Inside it was -13 degrees Celsius, so when we got there we were given coats and gloves to wear.  The inside was really cool (no pun intended).  Like I said, everything was made of ice - the counters, the seats, the walls, even the cups.  The only thing that wasn't ice was the TV (and it was playing Happy Feet while music was blasting).  My favorite part was probably the ice Sagrada Familia, but my drink was pretty good, too!  We lasted 60 minutes inside, leaving because our toes got cold (the rest of my body was nice and warm), but the average visit length is 45 minutes, so we reached our goal of being above average!

After Ice Bar, we walked down the beach a little bit before heading into a club.  The club was a lot of fun, but really loud!  The DJ that was there only comes on Saturdays, and he was really good.  Jordan, Julia, Maisie, Anna and I danced the whole time under the strobe lights and bubbles until we decided it was time to leave and take the metro home to get some sleep for Sunday.

The Cathedral of Barcelona

Sunday morning started with another delicious breakfast before our walking tour.  The walking tour was through the Gothic Quarter of the city.  We visited the Cathedral (which had a strict dress code of shoulders covered and skirts/pants down to the knees).  The inside was gorgeous, as every church has been!  I didn't get to explore too much as mass was starting, but I did get enough looks to appreciate the beauty.  We also saw the Cataluña government building, Santa Maria del Mar (another beautiful church), the official residence of the President, and a few other places.  Unfortunately, I don't remember what all of them were (that's the problem with having a walking tour), but check out the pictures if you want to see what I saw!

The bridge between the
government building
and President's house

Santa Maria del Mar

Waiting for the Picasso Museum

After the Gothic Quarter, we ate lunch and headed over to the Picasso museum.  After waiting in line for an hour, we only had 20 or so minutes to explore inside, but it was still a neat experience.  Most of the works were from the beginning of his career.  There were some blue era pictures and a few protocubismo ones (art class for the win!), with a lot of self portraits too.  At 3:45 we took off running to find the bus, hopped on, and were off around 4:15 to get back to Valencia.  I was home just in time to say goodnight to Pablo and eat dinner, before posting pictures and crashing.

A flag for Cataluña Independence
(yes, they want to be their own country)

So there you have it, my weekend in Barcelona (in a condensed version!).  If you want to see all the pictures, check out my Facebook album.  Until next time, I'm off to sleep!