Barcelona- ¡Ay•Ay•Ay!

Hola! Once again I apologize for the tardiness of my blogging. I have been Suffering (notice the capital "S") from migraines since Monday morning so it's really been rough to turn lights on and get stuff done. My roommates find it hilarious that I wear my infamous aviators around the apartment even at night :) but I'm hoping that I can stop doing that soon! I'm finally starting to lose my headache (shucks!) so lets hope it stays that way! So anyways, the following it the tale of our trip to Barcelona from February 6th - February 8th:

My roommates Emma and Han and I left the apartment Friday morning around 10:45 and caught a train at 11:30 from the Firenze S.M.N. train station to the Pisa Airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 15:10 but unfortunately, due to "bad weather" it didn't leave until about 17:15. Being from Minnesota, I thought the "bad weather" concept here was funny, since it was just heavy rain. We got to Barcelona about 20:30 (after an hour and a half bus ride from the airport, news to us as we didn't google where the airport was in comparison to the city, but the shuttle wasn't expensive and it turns out that many airports aren't very close to the city centres in Europe) and caught a taxi to our hostel. I really was excited to finally go to a place where I had the upper hand with the language. I was the only one of the three of us who spoke spanish so it was fun considering Emma is always the one translating for us in Italy since she knows Italian so much better than us. However, I found out that having Italian classes 8 hrs a week sticks more than it seems to and my italian pronunciations kept creeping into my "spanish speaking" (in Italian, "CI" or "CE" is pronounced with a "CH" sound, where in spanish, its pronounced with a "S" sound). I'm sure it was rather funny to hear my already broken spanish with an italian and american accent?!? However, Umbelina, you'd probably be extremely proud of me for the spanish I did speak all weekend. By Saturday afternoon I had lost my Italian-ness and began to speak with only an American accent (but then it was hard coming back to Italy only to speak with a Spanish and American accent! Maybe that's why I've had migraines?!?). Anyways, we got to our hostel, which was in a fantastic location, and was super cute, and for being my first hostel I've ever stayed in I was really impressed. (The picture above is from the hostel.) We asked the cute guy at the desk (Joel) where a good restaurant was and took off to get something to eat.

We went to a restaurant called "La Fonda" and first priority was to order sangria in the land of sangria :) and this half liter pitcher was only €3.95! And was really nummy--I shared, dont worry. The food was amazing as well, I had a putanesca spaghetti and chicken breast in a cheese sauce (first chicken since I've been abroad!) with creme brulee (no idea how it's spelled) for dessert. The only thing we missed was the olive oil for the bread-haha-but food is definitely cheaper in Barcelona than Florence! 
After dinner we just walked along the Mediterranean Sea (its a rough life, let me tell you) and checked out some piers and the beginning of Los Ramblas. This monument above is the statue of "Colum" which I'm not really sure what/who "Colum" is, but it is the start of Los Ramblas which is a long street that has an area to walk along in the middle of the road between the two lanes where street performers, vendors, and restaurants are found. It use to be only flower vendors so there are still a lot of them but there was also artisans there with crafts and bags and jewelry that they made when we were there (I got a neat iron ring). You'll see one of the live statues in a minute. Friday night we tried to go to bed rather early so we could get an early start on Saturday morning.
Saturday morning we woke up at 7:00 (yes AM, I was up that early by choice!), ate breakfast, planned our day, and left the hostel by 9:00. We didn't anticipate stores not opening until 10:00 (we thought that was only Florence, must be a European thing?) so we took the subway to go see some buildings by Antonio Gaudí since we just wanted to look at them and figured there weren't "hours" for that. A quick intro of Gaudí: he was a spanish architect who mainly built in Barcelona, and worked mostly with natural/organic forms. Some say he was brilliant, other say he was crazy. Basically his buildings were insanely cool. The first building we went to was "La Pedrera" (Casa Milá), as seen above. It didn't take long for us to decide we wanted to see inside and with our international student ID's we got in for only €5.50 instead of €10.00 (woot! woot!). I did buy a Gaudí book at the gift shop so I could have it for the rest of the trip and this is the little blurb it had about La Pedrera:

The widow Roser Segimon, heir to a vast fortune amassed by her first husband in the American colonies, was remarried to Pere Milá, an important Barcelona businessman. This wealthy couple wanted to build a building in Passeig de Grácia and so they hired the most expensive and famous architect: Antoni Gaudi. The construction, which took from 1906 until 1912, resulted in a monumental building, but also caused disagreements between Gaudí and the Milá family. The Casa Milá was the architect's last piece of civil engineering.

The doors to the building were designed to look like a butterfly's wing. Very cool. This picture above is in the "entryway". I don't know what else to call it since it's actually an open courtyard area. There's a picture below of a view of it looking upward. Notice the sweet colors on the walls and ceilings.

This is a mirror that was inside of La Pedrera. I guess I made it my "self-portrait" of the day since I was constantly listening to audio tours and taking pictures. We only got to see one floor of living quarters, since the others are actually still lived in. Can you imagine renting an apartment in a place like that? We also got to see the attic before going up to the roof.
The roof was incredible, and La Pedrera is famous for it. These are all chimneys and ventilation ducts. These were all huge and so cool to walk around. Another picture close up is below.

This is an upward view of one of the two courtyards in the middle of La Pedrera. The colors were still incredible. Once again, can you imagine living here?!
After La Pedrera, we walked over to another Gaudí building. Temple de la Sagrada Familia is clearly his most famous in Barcelona because it towers over everything in the skyline. As my Gaudí book says about it:

Construction work began on the Sagrada Familia in 1882. Its promoter, Josep Bocabella, entrusted the work to the architect Francisco de Paula del Villar who, in 1883, was replaced by Gaudí. From this moment on, the work on the temple would accompany him for the rest of his life and he introduced architectural solutions that he had tested and solved in other projects. The temple, that would be called the "Cathedral of the Poor", had to be financed entirely by donations. The works continue up to this day, following the plans that the architect left behind.

As you can see in the picture above there's still a lot of construction going on. Gaudí died way before it was done and left the plans for it to be finished. It actually still has a long way to go, including four more steeples and a huge main steeple with a large cross on the top (right in the middle where you can see in crane going up between the four steeples already) and is projected to be completed in 2025. I bought a neat postcard showing what it looks like now and what its supposed to look like finished.

This is the opposite side of the Temple and it was really cool to see how different each entrance was different from the other.
After seeing the Sagrada Familia, we got back on the subway and went to go see another building of Gaudí's and get some lunch. We were very proud of our subway navigating skills, or I should say "my" navigating skills since my knack for directions come in handy on trips to foreign places. Especially when Han and Emma get "confused" a lot (its cute). The picture above is us holding onto the pole "built for three." We ate tapas at a place called Tapas Tapas for lunch (tapa's are basically appetizers, lots and lots of appetizers) and I had some of the best food I've had it a long time. Then we split up and Emma and Han went to see the Dali museum and I went to...
Casa Batlló is another Gaudí building. Very cool façade. The Gaudí book says:

Between 1904 and 1907, Antoni Gaudí worked for the industrialist Josep Batlló Casanovas reforming a house built in 1877 and located in Passeig de Grácia in Barcelona. The decoration of the house, on which he was assisted by Josep Maria Jujol, expresses a fully-fledged modernist language. Nevertheless, the Barcelona population of the period were quite astonished by this work and quickly gave it nicknames such as the "house of bones" or the "house of yawns."

The inside of the house was designed with "no straight lines" (as my audio guide said) and was very very cool. (You'll have to check out the photo albums to see the insides.) A lot of the trim and doorways are made of wood, and they used stained glass discs with the windows and there were some really cool ceiling treatments. (Again, check out the pictures.) 
This building as well had an inside courtyard. It was all sorts of shades of blue and once again, people still actually live there in three other floors of apartments. Even the elevator was designed by Gaudí. 
This is a picture from the outside courtyard, these multi-colored glass discs and broken pieces of glass were used on the front façade, the back courtyard for decoration (this is part of a fountain), and also for the roof. The roof also had cool chimneys but wasn't as extravagant as La Pedrera. Basically what you see from the front is all it is. However, the inside was way cooler than the inside of La Pedrera.
After meeting back up with Han and Emma, we walked down Los Ramblas. Above is a picture of one of the MANY live statues. There were also vendors selling flowers and birds (yes, live birds in cages!) and souvenirs and street performers and there were artisans with lots more of fun stuff to look at. Its very hard shopping when you only pack a carryon bag that doesn't allow you much room for stuff to bring home! Saturday night we went to the Picasso museum (cheap again with our student IDs but rather boring since it didn't have a lot of his more famous works). Then we ate supper at a place called Tapas del Born (yay more tapas and sangria!). 
After walking around aaaaaalllllll day we were all super duper tired and were in bed and asleep by midnight. Sunday morning we slept in slightly and got up at 8:30 and checked out of the hostel at 10:00 leaving our bags there while we explored some more. Our plan was to spend the day at Park Güell (another Dalí creation). We took the subway there again since it was a long way away from the hostel. We followed the signs off the subway, walked uphill FOREVER, asked directions a few times, and basically climbed to the top of a mountain. But below is the view we got to see!
This view of Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea made the trek worth it I would say... but it was really frustrating that we couldn't find the Gaudí creations we were looking for. Other people were having the same issues and we kept hearing rumors of it being closed. So that was a bummer. Until I told the girls that a man said to climb to the top of the hill and go down the other side, and we found a big staircase that pointed out that we clearly climbed the opposite side of this "mountain" but at least we found the park the hard way! 
Park Güell is (as described by the Gaudí book): 

On a piece of land on the Muntanya Pelada, in the Barcelona district of La Salut, Eusebi Güell wanted to build an urbanisation inspired by the concept of the garden city. In this he sought to return to nature, health and an escape from the unsalubrious industrial city. Mainly assisted by Rubió, Berenguer and Jujol, Gaudí worked on the construction of this park between 1900 and 1914, and even moved his home there in 1906.

Above is a bench that is above a pavillion designed by Gaudí. Again, multi-colored pieces of broken glass were used. Gaudí's house was also in this park (and it's pink!) as well as more street performers and lots of people!!
This was a panel on the ceiling of the pavillion. Look at the photo albums to see more. 
This lizard of his is probably the most recognizable part of the park, as you can find key chains and mugs and such with it on there. He's part of an elaborate fountain that runs down the steps.
This is the view from the entrance of the park, the entrance we should've been able to find before climbing over from the other side of the hill. The columns at the tops of the stairs are part of the huge pavilion and the wavy top of it where you can vaguely see people are the benches I was sitting on in a picture above. In the center of the stairs are the lizard and fountain set-up. There are two other buildings, one on either side of me, that you'll have to look at the photo albums to see. 

After Park Güell, we had to quick get on the subway, eat and grab a cab back to the hostel, grab our bags and catch a bus back to the airport. This time the flight took off on time, and below is the view of the sunset over the Mediterranean from the airplane. Again, its a rough life.
We got back, grabbed a train back to Florence, and were back to our apartment by 9:00. It was good to be home. So I know this was a really really long blog, but I figured you all needed something to distract you from your days! :) Check out the photo albums to the right, I apologize for how many there are, I guess I have some Dacia and Dana genes in me... Gleisner pride??