Thursday & Friday - Barcelona!

 Be sure to click on my Flickr link on the side to see photos of what I'm describing here!

Thursday:
Busy day! I had my grammar class from 3:30-5pm which is quite an inconvenient hour. I managed to cram in homework and pack before going, since we planned on leaving around 7:15pm for the airport. I had to print off my boarding passes at school which meant that I didn't get home until after 6pm, because there was a class using the computer lab that I had to wait to finish. I got home, finished up a little packing, and ate a delicious sandwich that my host madre prepared which was grilled chicken and delicious cheese on a baguette. Hannah and I met and walked with our matching rolling suitcases to the bus stop. It was easy to find the bus, and it wasn't very crowded. It didn't take very long at all to get to the airport. We got there super early since our flight didn't leave until almost 10pm. Security was a joke. There were only 5 of us in line for security. The man in front of us had a baby, so one of the security men held his baby and cuddled it and played with it while the man was going through security. It was so different from anything that would ever happen in the U.S. We went through with ease within a few minutes. It was very refreshing to not feel like a criminal going through security like they always make you feel at home. Since we were there so early, they hadn't assigned us a gate yet, so we wandered around for a while waiting. We finally got a gate, but then they delayed our flight for some reason. It was delayed by about an hour, which wasn't a big deal, except that it made us land in Barcelona really late. The plane (vueling flight) was really nice, and they played music while everyone was boarding, which was awesome. There was a lot of turbulence which was a little scary, but the flight was so short that it didn't affect us for too long. It was raining when we got to Barcelona, and the rain looked amazing from the plane. The strobe-like light flashing on the end of the wing highlighted the rain every other second, so it looked like a rain strobe dance.. it looked amazing. I thought that it looked like something a director would include in a movie. Hannah stayed with some family friends who gave us instructions of how to get to the city, which included riding a train.. and the last train left about 20 minutes after we landed. After speed-walking/running through the lovely Barcelona airport, we got to the ticket machines and purchased our train tickets just in time. We got on the train with about 2 minutes to spare. The train was really nice, but slow like the others we rode in Mallorca. It was very rainy that night. We met Hannah's friends at a train station close to their house and my hotel, and they showed us how to get around the little area we were staying in. The train station is literally between the two different places we stayed, so it was very nice and easy to get around! My hotel was a lot nicer than I was expecting. I have always heard that hotels here are horrible. It definitely wasn't as nice as the hotels I'm used to, but it was still pretty nice for the price and location, except of course there was no heat. I settled in and watched some tv, including Spanish and German channels, and went to sleep.

Friday:
I only slept about 6 hours due to us arriving late and wanting to get up early to start the day. I went downstairs and had the breakfast at the hotel which was decent. I met up with Hannah, and we decided to walk 20 minutes to Sagrada Familia, a ridiculously huge and detailed Catholic church, designed by Antoni Gaudí who also designed many other buildings in Barcelona. They started building the church in 1882, and it is still not finished. (There were many construction workers the day we went.) It was a beautiful warm, windy day, so the walk was quite nice. We definitely knew when we came upon the church.. it is huge!! We took pictures in the little park area across the street before walking up to it. The amount of detail in the decorations all over the exterior of the church is simply incredible. Every square inch (I guess I should use centimeter) of the exterior is covered in perfectly carved and sculpted detail. It is quite impressive. After searching for how to actually get inside the church, we found a line wrapped around one side of the building. It was quite cold and windy in the shade where we had to stand in line, but it went relatively fast. We went inside along with thousands of other tourists and began taking hundreds of photographs. It is quite strange to me that the inside of the building doesn't really match the outside. I already knew that before entering, because I saw pictures of it in one of my classes last semester. But it is just really strange when you actually see it. The outside is very Gothic and old-looking, and the inside is very modern. There are giant white columns and stained glass windows that reflect oh-so-perfectly on the structures inside the church. There is a giant Jesus statue suspended under a parachute over the altar. I overheard a tour guide say that it is symbolic of his protection of the altar. (Also, all along the top of the parachute are pieces of wheat. The tour guide was speaking in English and couldn't think of the word for it. She kept saying "wit" very harshly, and I could not stop laughing. She asked someone in her group how to say it, and she described it as, "You make cereal out of it. wit? wit? wit?" It was pretty funny.) The lighting in there was simply incredible. That was my favorite part, just looking at every part of the interior and how the lighting enhanced features. One of my favorite things (as you can tell from the amount of photos I took of it) was how one of the stained glass windows reflected on the organ pipes. It was so gorgeous. One thing I noted while inside the church was that it did not feel like a church at all. I would never want to attend a religious service there, because it felt empty. I definitely did not feel like I was in a church nor did I feel the presence of God like one should be able to feel in a church. It was very cold feeling. I consider it moreso to be a tourist attraction than a place of worship. We stayed there for a long time, then headed to Las Ramblas, which is the main shopping and dining street in Barcelona.
We saw a Starbucks (the first we had seen since the U.S.) and the most beautiful El Corte Ingles (my favorite department store) ever. There were tons of random street performers, including someone in a baby carriage screaming like a baby, people acting like statues, and a man in a gold dragon costume that reminded me of a World of Warcraft character. We headed in to this small, cozy tapas bar for some food. We got croquetas (fried delicious chicken stuff.. I don't really know how else to describe them haha), and some crunchy potato-wrapped shrimp. I also had one of the best beers ever (beer on tap is just so amazing). We liked the food, until we got the bill. Four pieces of shrimp cost 10 euros.. what a joke. We paid for the ridiculously overpriced food, and headed off to find more (cheap) food. Her host family told us about this place to get waffles, so we went there. It was not what we were expecting. We thought it meant like a plate of 3 giant waffles for 5 euro, but it was really one tiny rectangular waffle with toppings. I got mine with nutella, whipped cream, and strawberries, and it cost about 5 euros.. again, so overpriced. The waffles were homemade and very good, but the problem was that they gave us plastic cutlery to use to eat the waffles. Hannah broke a fork, and I broke a knife. I had much difficulty with mine, so Hannah took some incredibly unattractive photos of me picking it up to eat, which ended in all the toppings sliding off my waffle. It was fun and delicious.
We walked down to the Cristobal Colón (or as we Americans know him as, Christopher Columbus) statue near the port. It was kind of unimpressive, but it was cool to see it. This guy from Israel followed me around for a while until I told him to go away. I couldn't understand his accent when he talked, which was unsurprising since I often can't understand even British English. I asked him where he was from and he said "Iss-rell". I had no idea what he was saying which made it awkward, because I had my "I have no idea what you're saying" expression on my face, and he just kept repeating it. Finally, he said, "You know, the country that causes all the problems.." The lightbulb went on at the point.. "Oh!!! Israel!" Then we ditched him. We walked around and took photos of that area and tried to go to a nautical history museum in the area. It was really weird when we walked in, because we thought we were supposed to pay but they didn't say anything to us. Hannah tried to go in one of the exhibit halls, and a guy stopped her and asked for her ticket. She said she didn't have one and asked where the ships were located in the museum, and he replied that the museum was closed for 2 years. 2 weeks? No, 2 years. They only had temporary exhibits about sharks. Lame.
We decided to head to Park Güell, another design by Gaudí.  It was quite an adventure to get there, and Google Maps on my phone certainly helped. We got off at the train stop and had no idea where to go. We walked about half a mile or so down the road we were on and still didn't know where to go. A random construction worked asked if we were looking for the park and told us where to go. We turned left where he said to turn and saw escalators that seemed yo continue for at least a mile up a steep hill. Thank God for those escalators. We went up so many outside escalators until we got to the top of the hill, and the view was spectacular. We had to walk up part of it at the very top which was very difficult to do, so I would have never made it if those escalators weren't there for most of the way. I also had studied this park in my class, so I knew what it looked like.. or so I thought. I didn't know that most of the park is actually trails on a hill/mountain. I was quite confused, until I saw a map. We had to walk around on trails to figure out where to go. We saw some spectacular views of Barcelona on the way. We also climbed up this little platform with stairs that were falling apart and a little scary, to the top of the peak, which had 3 crosses on top of it and tons of people crammed into the tiny spot (it was probably about 7 feet in diameter.) I admit that I was a little frightened to go up there, because it was a long way down the hill and the steps were pretty unstable, but it was so worth it. It was about 10 feet high off the trail, but wow did that make a difference in views. We just stayed up there for 10-15 minutes in the strong winds, observing Cataluña and literally seeing the entirety of Barcelona. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I sat up there for a while on the middle platform, leaned against the big cross statue and definitely felt spiritual while gazing out at the landscape. It was a great moment. As soon as we descended the seemingly ancient steps, there was a man selling earrings and necklaces... on an umbrella. It was definitely the coolest, smartest street (trail?) vendor that I had ever seen. He had all of the earrings stuck through the umbrella, so even in the wind, they didn't move. The guy was super nice, and I spoke Spanish to him pretty well while some of the other Americans up there struggled to speak Spanish to him. He was a really cool guy. I bought 2 pairs of earrings from his umbrella store, for only 4 euros each. They are so beautiful. They are inspired by Gaudi's work and are made really nicely. They are definitely my 2 favorite purchases in Spain so far.. I mean, how many people can say they bought earrings from an umbrella store on top a of a mountain in Barcelona, Spain? We descended more trails to make our way to the main terrace that Gaudi designed. There is a big terrace with mosaic benches and tons of people everywhere. The mosaics are so beautiful, and all of them are so different. We went below the terrace to see "el drac", which is a mosaic dragon that is pretty famous too. There were so many people crowded around the dragon that it was difficult to get good pictures of it. We wandered around the rest of the area, watching a concert in the hall of columns (amazing acoustics.. the two people playing sounded incredible), looked in the giftshop, and then tried to figure out how to get back to Barcelona. We ended up a bus to the train station to get back to Barcelona. [Sidenote: I hate Barcelona's transportation. It is always soooo crowded, and the trains are pretty hard to figure out because the maps are misleading. I feel sorry for people that don't speak Spanish who go there.]
Once back in Barcelona, we went to Casa Batlló, yet another Gaudi creation. It is designed to look like parts of a dragon. The windows outside look like bones, and on the roof there is a giant statue thing that has scales. The house is really interesting. The lighting in it is very cool. I think again, the lighting was my favorite part about the house. Gaudi was really good at creating dramatic lighting. We had to fight with the ticket lady, because she didn't believe we were students, despite our UIB student cards. I got impatient and ended up giving her literally all my cards (UIB, Palma bus card, Palma train card, TN driver's license) until she just sold me the discounted student ticket. It was really annoying, because obviously we weren't lying about being students when we had student cards, but she wouldn't believe us.. whatever. Our ticket included a free audiotour handset, which was pretty cool at first.. but annoying later. I got sick of having to stay in one place to listen to the full tour commentary, so I ended up not listening to the full tour. The house is very cool, and it's hard to imagine that a family actually lived there. It would be like a dream house for children. One of my favorite rooms of it was a mushroom shaped sitting room with a fireplace. It looks like the best place ever to read a book and do homework. You need to look at all my photos of the house, because it is quite hard to describe it all.
After that, it was getting pretty late. We went to a cheap sandwich shop nearby and got some delicious sandwiches and also ran into some American girls there who didn't know Spanish at all. I got a little sunburned during the day, probably at the park, but it felt good to have a little color on my skin. We were out for about 9 hours on Friday, so needless to say, we were exhausted. I took about 600 photos on Friday alone. We went back to take naps, and Hannah invited me to eat dinner with her host family when I woke up. Well, I didn't wake up until 9am. I slept for about 12 hours.. whoops! I felt great the next day. :)