Barcelona: La Sagrada Familia

12.30: Here's the thing that I have wanted to see the most in Barcelona since I started learning about Barcelona in the first place. The Catedral de la Sagrada Familia is Gaudí's biggest creation, but unfortunately it's still unfinished because a) Gaudí died halfway through the construction (he got hit by a tram) and b) they ran out of money for a little while.

But even though it's not finished, it was worth the line that wrapped halfway around the city block to get in. Plus, this means we got to see more of the outside, where once again Gaudí used a lot of references to nature to decorate the cathedral, from fruits and vegetables atop the towers, to shells and lizards decorating the walls, to a giant tree atop the main façade at the front of the church.

The façade on the opposite side, where visitors enter, was sculpted after Gaudí's death, but depicts the story of Jesus, excepting his birth. I don't know a ton about the Bible, but the Last Supper, Betrayal of Judas, and Crucifixion are all there, along with several other important chapters. Over the doors are carvings of the Greek letters Alpha and Omega.

Inside, the ceiling looks like flowers, supported by giant stone pillars that branch out to look like a forest.

Another one of Gaudí's trademark style points is the use of natural light. The church is covered with what will eventually be about ten sets of stained-glass windows on each side. 

The main altarpiece of the Cathedral was designed by Gaudí but sculpted by another artist under Gaudí's direction. The backside of the altar is surrounded by a series of chapels where the stained glass is finished, and the metal organ reflects all the colors that come through the windows.

Above the altar is the largest skylight in the church, the top of which is capped by a circle of gold to symbolize God.

The church is expected to be finished by the middle of the century, and will eventually have four middle towers and one giant tower in the absolute center. For now, they're working on the four surrounding towers, but the ones along the outside are finished.

Also, a lot of the museum exhibits (this one is inside the school Gaudí designed for the children of the workers and local kids) were about the physics and mathematics of putting the church together… which Cordis the engineering bro took as an opportunity to try to teach me advanced math–so here's Cordis the "schience!" teacher.

 After seeing every little thing in the church, we went to get a snack–ice cream!

Noms. After this, we went to find a park with more things designed by Gaudí–it was at this point that Cordis started making fun of the audio guide tours that praise Gaudí at every opportunity, so Cordis now refers to Gaudí as "the god-king Gaudí!" But the park was really pretty, even if we managed to accidentally enter on the wrong side and got to climb a lot of stairs and hills to get there!! It just meant we got to see more of the park–and nature is something Salamanca is slightly lacking in, so I didn't mind a few extra trees.

The true Gaudí part of the park consists of an itty bitty church, which is now a gift shop. Gotta make money somehow, I guess. 

But it made for a nice afternoon adventure!

After all of these shenanigans, we went back to the hotel to grab our luggage and switch to the other hotel we're staying at in Barcelona. Which is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. I'm spoiled rotten, I tell you. We're only here two nights because it burned a fair amount of hotel points to stay here, but it's so worth it! We're right on the water, and everything about this place screams hospitality. There's free hot chocolate in the lobby. It was originally built to be the Olympic Village living quarters in the '92 Olympics. It's crazy beautiful.

Chocolate in the lobby!

Munchkin's reaction to the thought of being an interior designer at this hotel...

Barcelona: Gaudí's Casa Battló

Well, I can think of no better way to start my Saturday than to wake up at 5 AM to get on a train, can you?

However, that train was headed to Barcelona, which made everything better!!

We managed to successfully navigate the Metro with the giant suitcases (doesn't everyone just love being the people on public transportation with all their luggage? Yeah, me too.) and find the hotel, which is a block away from one of the main attractions of Barcelona–the Casa Batlló, one of Antoni Gaudí's creations.

It's an amazing building, and there's essentially zero conventionally flat surfaces, except the floors. Everything is moving, with wavy outlines and random shapes.

Not everything in the house is original–it was originally built for the Batlló family, but eventually fell into disrepair and had to be restored. Unfortunately, this means the tickets to see the house are pretty expensive, so they can restore it properly, but hey, I can deal with dollar-store food if it means I get to see this house.

This fireplace is an original though. It's built so that a couple can sit on the big seat on the right side, and their chaperone can sit on the little seat on the left–since dating was a smidge different when this house was built in the early 1900's.

The building is all "sea-shapes" as the audio tour called it, like this ceiling is built to look like a whirlpool, and the windows in the room are all wavy with colored glass.

Also, Gaudí put in access to natural light in every room in the house, even the office, the smallest room in the house. There was a center light shaft in the middle of the house, which provided access to the elevator and the apartments on all the upper floors, and this light shaft is made out of blue tile that's darker at the top and lighter at the bottom, so that it all seems like the same shade of blue, even as you move down and there's less light.

The roof is pretty snazzy too, Gaudí grouped all the chimneys together so they could form a castle-like shape instead of littering the roof with random structures. And the front of the house looks like a dragon's spine.

The apartment doors are marked with letters instead of numbers, in a calligraphy that Gaudí made up himself, and the door handles are an unconventional shape, that's made to fit to your hand. 

Bilbao

Soooo here's what we found in Bilbao to do:

• eat a lot of Italian food (like way too much Italian food)
• Guggenheim museum

Not that this makes it a bad visit, but this will probably be a shorter post. Because while the Guggenheim is super awesome from the outside…

 

…and includes a crazy spider sculpture that the artist made to represent her mother (in a good way, like how they keep mosquitos from spreading disease and are both strong and fragile at the same time), the art inside the museum is a little underwhelming.

There were a few things I really liked, like the Andy Warhol print of Marilyn Monroe's face, or a digital installation that was originally put in for a fundraiser for AIDS relief. The digital installation scrolls messages in English and Spanish on the front side in red, and in Basque (because we are in Basque country, after all) on the back in blue. It's all short phrases that are basically about being human–big themes like love and loss. It's just really interesting to read them, because they get strung together like a story.

And the art inside is not bad, but after visiting the Museo del Prado, Reina Sofia, and the Vatican Museum… It's just not quite up to snuff. Very interesting art though, there is no denying that. There was a pillow shaped like a piece of pie, or some incredibly crazy large pieces of metal that were made into huge spirals that you could explore. Just unconventional stuff, which was definitely interesting and we spent a while looking at it all.

Oh yeah, and there's a puppy and a giant stack of marbles outside the museum too. Fancy art. And at the top of the hour, a "fog sculpture" takes place, something installed by a Japanese artist who's been working with fog for something like 30 years… I'll just leave you all with that tidbit.

Differences #1

Walking is hard. I didn't really realize it until my family came to visit. I mean, walking around the streets was kind of difficult when I first arrived, but I mostly chalked it up to the fact that we were in a giant, clueless tourist group. But during my time in Spain, I've changed the way I walk around on the street. When I walked places in Salamanca with my friends, we walked in tight-knit groups, where there wasn't a ton of space between us so we wouldn't have to separate from one another when dodging other tight-knit groups on the street. My family, however, walks in this giant blob of separated individuals. And there are only four of us, but we take up SO MUCH SPACE. It's just very interesting to me because I've adopted the Spanish notion of no personal space when interacting with people. I walk very close to whoever I'm talking with, and it drives me nuts when they wander out of the tiny bubble of conversation I'm used to. Sorry to use you as an example, family, but I didn't notice that was something that had changed about me until y'all got here!

It makes me wonder what it'll be like when I finally do get home. Because Spain is all about these cramped little streets and walking everywhere while you bump into the rest of the city, and America is just wide open spaces. Everywhere. I suppose it's a little different seeing American habits and Spanish habits right next to each other, and when I get home the big spaces won't seem so pronounced because there aren't as many little spaces. But I do have a feeling I will be all up in everyone's personal bubble. Moral of the story being, if I'm in your space when I get home, keep in mind that I just spent 4 months with half of Spain in my personal bubble. I no longer feel like I'm encroaching on your territory. If you slowly back away, I may follow you. It'll probably wear off eventually, but until then, sorry team!

Family Visit: Part 1

12.22-23: Madrid

Oh, my jet-lagged family. Nothing like trying to find a coffee shop in the middle of the overpacked center of Madrid because people are so tired they can barely stand. After visiting the Cathedral and deciding the Palacio Real was too expensive for tours, my brother literally fell asleep at the table when we stopped for coffee near the Plaza Mayor. Jet lag? Jet lag. At least he didn't snore that time.

On Saturday, Jake was still in Madrid as well, so he and Cordis could at least keep each other entertained with football talk (of which I understand nothing, since I've been away from the sports news for so long!) and the new game they made up just for Spain–scarf spotting. Jake absolutely refuses to get a scarf… Cordis wanted to buy one while we were waiting in the train station when we left Madrid.

Trying Mom's scarf on...

Sunday was museum day. Lucky for us, museums are free on Sundays! We visited the Museo del Prado and the Reina Sofia for free. Win. Win win win. So I showed my parents La Guernica by Picasso, Las Meninas by Velazquez, Goya's dark period, the family portrait of Carlos IV's family where they painted in a faceless woman for Carlos V's wife (he hadn't married yet), religious paintings by El Greco, and we looked at a lot more art than I'd seen on our big group tours. Quite the day of paintings, but I guess four months in Europe makes you a lot better at surviving the art museums!

Prado Museum... may have gotten in trouble for this photo. Oops.

12.24-27 Salamanca

On the morning of Christmas Eve, we embarked on the train to Salamanca! Our hotel was right next to the Catedral Vieja, and the room Cordis and I were in had the best view of it. It made me so happy.

Merry Christmas!

On Christmas Eve, basically everything was closed, as could be expected in a largely-catholic country that takes a daily nap time break. It was like a ghost town. We managed to find a place that sold empanadas for lunch, and ate them in the Plaza Mayor.

I took Cordis scarf-shopping (since we didn't find one in the train station…) and we found a reasonably-priced one at H&M on Calle Toro. I'd like to just put this into the universe–I got my brother to go shopping at a store he'd normally avoid like the plague, a place that sells skinny colorful jeans for dudes. I feel that should be stated for the record. We did find a pretty spiffy scarf though, he looks very European (and enjoys saying so at every opportunity).

European Munchkin

Dinner was at a cafeteria I've walked past every day, so I finally got to see what the food was like! The Cafeteria Casino is delicious, just so you all know. We all got food we were quite pleased with, and since we eat really early by Spanish standards (we tend to be the first people in the restaurant after it opens…), we were able to get out of their hair before it was obnoxiously late for the employees to go home to their own Christmas festivities.

Christmas involved a lot of sitting around, walking around aimlessly, and sitting around some more. We bought snacks at the supermarket before, so we had a feast of pistachios, chocolate, and "gourmet" potato chips. And Fanta Limón, the drink I will miss so much when I go home! But more places were open for dinner at night (for the Spanish, Christmas Eve is very family-oriented, while on Christmas Day it seemed to be more acceptable to go out), so we found a place from Mom's guidebooks on Rúa Mayor, where we had fantastic food! I got some kind of mystery cut of pork, I still don't know what the menu item translates to, but it was delicious.

The next day we finally got to have our tourist day, soooo we did everything! We went to my favorite coffeeshop, the famous Mandala, for breakfast, where I discovered that my favorite coffee comes in a large size instead of the little baby one I usually order. Too bad I won't get to take advantage of that… but who needs that much caffeine anyway?

We explored the Cathedral and I showed my parents the human arm that's in one of the chapels along the sides. Main attraction. Still don't know why it's there.

After that, we went to the automotive museum, and I'm so sad Jake was too sick (and I was too busy) to make it to this, because he would've loved it. 100 cars, 60 motorcycles, and a whole lot of old stuff. The greatest delight for anyone who loves both history and cars. Like my dad!

Next, the Cathedral towers. Unfortunately, it was super foggy, meaning my family didn't get to see the amazing view from the top that I was hoping for. Plus they're restoring the bell tower, so there's scaffolding up all over the place. At least it's pretty enough that all this didn't totally ruin the experience! I love the top of these towers.

And then, they got to meet María! This was a little more difficult than when Jake met her, because my family speaks about 20 words of Spanish all together. But body language and gestures will get you halfway there! And I got to eat María's tortilla one last time (she makes the best tortilla!).

Both my mamas!!

And last but not least, we went to the building of the old Universidad. Sofia from ISA was a much better tour guide than I, but I remembered a fair amount of her stories from the tour I took before! Plus, my dad loves reading museum descriptions, even I learned some things.