Like I said, I went to Barcelona last weekend. It was the first big trip I’ve went on (“big” being defined as “out of Andalucía”), and it definitely set the bar pretty high. As a city, Barcelona is completely different than Cadiz. For one thing, it’s enormous, located in Catalonia (think NE Spain), so both Spanish and Catalán is spoken, not to mention the its obvious cosmopolitan vibe. While I haven’t exactly traveled around Europe enough to feel qualified to make sweeping generalizations about it, I feel like it’s safe to say I got my first (small) taste of a typical big city in Europe. However, despite the appeal of being somewhere completely new and different, the best part about going to Barcelona is that I got to meet up with Lisa, my good friend from UPS! She flew in from Munich where she is currently living and I few in from Seville, so we met up in the airport and took the train to our extremely small and cute bed and breakfast-type place. After eating lunch and designing our itinerary of activities, we went out to explore the city.
Since we only had a few days in the city, we tried to pack in as much activity as possible without making sight seeing become a stressful task rather than an enjoyable experience. If I were to try and sum up the weekend’s events, I would say it was dedicated to appreciation of aesthetics… okay that kind of sounds like we just checked out Spanish guys all weekend. Not true. I mean aesthetics like the crazy architecture everywhere around the city, but especially places like La Familia Sagrada, La Pedrera, El Batlló… okay so maybe we did have a love affair… but don’t worry, it was with the buildings that renowned architect Antoni Gaudí designed and constructed. It’s incredible how perfectly planned everything is down to the smallest detail both in terms of architectural technique as well as building’s aesthetic design. With all of his work, Gaudí incorporates elements of nature – a classic example being the lack traditional straight walls with rigid 90 degree edges. Instead, any potential straight line or sharp angle morphs into a flowing, soft, rounded shape, whether it be a doorframe, stairwell, hallway, etc. This, along with his strategic use of windows and natural light in combination with all kinds of blues and purples make being inside his buildings like being under the sea or really just anywhere that is not inside a building in the middle of an extremely urban center. However, the part I liked best was being on the roofs of these buildings because that is where he went crazy with colorful tile mosaics and turned boring, ugly chimney tops into mysterious, abstract figures and statues. This, plus the fact that you can see all the surrounding Barcelona area makes it easy to spend a long time up on the patio rooftops soaking everything in. You can see examples of how he does this in the pictures that I already posted… I’m sure it would be easier for you just to look at them and see rather than to have me keep trying to explain things.
But where was I? Oh yes, the appreciation of aesthetics. In addition to drooling over Gaudí’s genius, we enjoyed walking along the Rambla del Mar (the sidewalk along the water), winding around the paths of Parc Guell, gawking at art in the Museu Picasso, exploring the Barri Gotic (the Gothic neighborhood), and wandering up and down another main largely pedestrian thoroughfare known just as “La Rambla”. Here we saw many interesting things: an outdoor market, people in costumes acting like statues (I got yelled at by the green goblin-esque man I tried to take a picture of… I was terrified of all costumed/facepainted individuals from that point on), stands that sold magazines and candy, some that sold houseplants and flowers, and others that sold animals (the pet variety, not for consumption) like fish, birds and hamsters. Needless to say, there was a lot to take in and we certainly didn’t do it all in one weekend, but I’m not opposed to a return visit…
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