Well at around 1 or 2pm on the Monday after Halloween 2009 I flew into Barcelona. The metro is attached to the airport (Girona airport I think) so that was pretty easy. In Barcelona everyone speaks effectively three languages: Spanish, English, and Catalan, or Català. From what I've heard its a hybrid mixture of Spanish and French. Wherever I went I at least tried to speak the local language, but there was no way I was going to attempt Catalan. I tried a little bit of Spanish and I used English when I needed to. Also in Barcelona everyone speaks Spanish with a lisp making their "c" sounds a "th" sound. Literally I heard "Grathias por tu visita a Barthelona" on the speakers in the dolphin show below. That and a lot of "Como ethstas"? I think its a little funny because it sounds like their speaking Spanish incorrectly from how it is in Cali, but then again any language spoken with a Cali accent is funny to other people around the world.
So I get out of the metro station in Barcelona. It was the Par.al.lel metro stop but the word Parellel has some periods in it for sure, but I just don't remember where. Weird. This is located in the South-East part of the city near my hostel. I see my friend and we go to an ATM. Then I check into my hostel HelloBCN Hostel (my favorite hostel that I stayed in) and we soon go out and exploring in Barcelona. I get a map of Barcelona from my hostel and see that its huge. Since its a tourist map I see a lot of monuments and the word Gaudí appears on the map frequently. Since I didn't really research beforehand anywhere that I went to (try not to do that) I had no idea what anything was. I even thought I was on the west coast of Spain for a second because I'm always on the west coast everywhere I am, which was a little sad. While we're walking I'm getting an impromptu lesson on the streets of Barcelona and the good stuff to see, as well as a the best sandwhich shop in all of Barcelona (which I visited multiple times later on). It turned out we went to an elevated park in the south-east of Barcelona near the hostel. It also has a historic castle in the park and of course good views. From the research I just did I apparently first went to Montjuïc Park and of course saw the Montjuïc Castle as well. The walk up to this is where the pictures start...
After climbing up some stairs and walking up some roads, we got to a flat walkway. This is what we saw... This is view of the harbor and main street running along the ocean. You can also see what I think are cruise ships or just really large ships parked in the harbor.
Here is a picture of the same scene above but on maximum zoom. It's a statue that I will elaborate on later. If you look at the road lined by trees and look at its first intersection you can see this statue. Since we're in Spain maybe you can guess who it is...
Across from the picture above is the Miramar Hotel, which has an incredible view. Miramar of course means "see the sea" and from what I saw it was a pretty expensive hotel. It was completely closed off and I couldn't really find a way to the lobby.
Here's another views from in line with the Miramar. You can see the seats to this restaurant on the left, which had a pretty amazing view.
Here is another view but more to the left. The ocean is of course east but its hard to see in this picture.
Here is another similar picture but more zoomed out. You can make out the cruise ship from behind the palm tree and the ocean and harbor water are more visible in this picture.
And this is a view of the shipyards south of the cruise ships...
And here is Montjuïc Castle itself. The inside of the castle was closed off and the only interesting things were the cannons that you could go and play around with up close. That and the views.
This is an endless waterfountain they had in the lower park area near the Miramar Hotel.
This is the stupidest picture ever that I somehow allowed to be taken. When I was abroad I didn't really get a haircut so my hair is kinda long and since I was on vacation I didn't have hair gel (I only had a carry-on and my clothes on my back for everything and obviously gel can't go on a plane) and I wasn't going to buy one just for a week. I always come out badly in picture and this is another example. While going through the Madrid/Barcelona pictures I saw this and I still don't remember really allowing this to be taken with my camera but whatever. If you like the shirt and jeans I bought those for myself at the Roma flea market because I didn't bring enough clothes to Rome. And those shoes were the only sneakers I brought for 4 months. Quite loyal to me. And the reason it looks like I have two watches on is that my hostel gave us a watch-like "key" that we scanned to get in our room.
And finally here is a view from the castle itself. You can see what was the moat and of course Barcelona itself.
Well here is the statue I showed you earlier. It is a statue of Cristopher Colombus pointing towards the ocean. However the irony is that he is pointing east when the New World is of course west. He was the ultimately man because he never asked for directions and got lost on his terms and dealt with the consequences. Those consequences were landing on the Caribbean Islands and discovering the New World, although the Indians would say something different.
Barcelona is defined by one man: Gaudí. He is of course the famous early twentieth century architect that designed unique buildings all around Barcelona. His works were very unique and different and prominently featured parabolic shapes and heavy use of natural daylight, among other things. The first monument I went to was his unfinished church as it is called in the Gothic section of Barcelona right in the middle of the city. After walking down Cristopher Colombus Road (more or less the translation; I just remember it was named after him and its the one that runs along the ocean) I went to the sandwich place I had heard wonders about (it was amazing; I went back multiple times). Then I went to the middle of the city in the tourist-y areas and looked around. Since I had five days I didn't really plan out my days and did what I wanted after I split off from my friends. The freedom of doing what you want in a beautiful city like Barcelona is the best, and at night my hostel would get us free admission and a free drink at a club each night so I had my nights set already. That and the abundance of sangria made Barcelona awesome.
So anyways I went to the Unfinished Church (the translation more or less) and here it is...
But what does it look like inside? Well I was curious as well until I found out that you have to buy a ticket to go in. Hmm... do I buy a ticket for a church when they are all free everywhere else? Well contrary to what I normally believe in I spent the 5 euro (it might have been a little bit more, I don't remember) and in I went. I saw this...
But there's a lot of intricate detail. I immediately noticed major differences from Roman churches, like the walls without frescos and not that much marble or travertine. That and the Gothic design and flying buttresses as they say. And of course the use of gold in a lot of the church, like this...
This post is running too long. That means I will continue on another post. ¡Adios, hasta luego!
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