Barça
Trip Start
Jun 05, 2006
1
26
33
Trip End
Aug 01, 2006
Barcelona,
Spain
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
So Rob, Jenn, Drew and Anne-Elise left early this morning for Madrid, and are more than likely already checked in to the hotel there. For we train-travelling sorts (Jon, Jill, Kelly and myself), we're still in lovely Barcelona, and the other three are currently touring La Sagrada Familia, the famous unfinished grand cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi, while I write in this somewhat less impressive internet/call shop. Yesterday we spent a couple hours hiking around the, also Gaudi designed, Parc Güell, which is this meandering series of trails on a hillside overlooking the city, where several Gaudi structures sort of pop unexpectedly out of the evergreen woods. And for those not familiar with Gaudi, this was sort of his design plan--to mix human structures with bizarre organic forms that mimic nature. It´s like nothing I´ve ever seen anywhere else, and it´s become emblematic of Barcelona and Catalonian culture in general, and is so interesting in fact, that it has lead Japanese tourists to contribute a great amount of funding toward the final construction of Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece.
Anyway, once the other three get done gawking at La Sagrada Familia, we're all meeting at a bar near our hostel, where we'll be taken to a restaurant near the harbor to have a Spanish cooking lesson. We get to make our own sangria, tapas, and paella with directions from the restaurant's chef, and then consume everything ourselves. [Mmmmm] I hope it's as delicious and satisfying as I've worked it up to be in my head, but we shall see. And basically that'll be it for Barcelona, because at 11 tonight we board the overnight train to Madrid which will be the last trip our core group of four will take together. I think the girls are looking forward to going home, to be honest, and well, it has been a pretty harrowing month and a half. But Jon and I still have a week after that in Galicia, and I have one after that in Palma. But things are definitely winding down for us, and we're all looking forward to meeting up with our friend Isaac (that we befriended in Florence), and Jon's parents, who'll be in Madrid tomorrow for their anniversary. Well, that's all for now. More on our culinary exploits later. And as they say here, que vagi molt bé.
Ciao,
Matt
