Growing Up Gaudi

After a late night in Nice with Chuck and BJ, Sean and I opted to stay up till 6 am to catch the morning train to Barcelona. Prior to our trip I was in contact with my cousion, Caitlin, who had spent a simester in Barcelona last year. She gave Sean and I a detailed desciption of everything we needed to see in Barcelona. For the majority of our stops we had gotten advice from people on places to see, but Caitlin took it to another level. She gave us a complete lonely planet worthy 10 page essay on the ins and outs of Barcelona, so we were expecting alot out from the city.

We got into Barcelona around 11 at night and checked into our hostel. While waiting to go out and see the city we got the oppotruntiy to watch our Turks spoil yet another certain victory in the Eurocup. They were down 1-0 to Croatia with a minute to go in the match and with a second left one of their strikers put a shot right in the top corner. Sean and I were jumping up and down, screaming TURK-E-A TURK-E-A. After our celebration we looked around to see stares from all the guest staying at our hostel, a little akward for a first impression. We told them our Turkey futbol story and then left to see the Barcelona night life.

Now the main drag in Barcelona is called La Rambla. Its a pretty unique places, there is a mixture of nice resturants, night clubs, bars, and shops. Oh and did I happen to mention the plethora of prostitutes and shady drug dealers. Being from Annapolis Md Sean and I are not all that familar with how to deal with these kinds of things. Litteraly ever ten steps there was a different guy coming up to us, all with the same line, "cervezia, marijuana, hashi, cocaine." This went on for a solid hour untill we finally decided we had had enough, we bought a six pack of beers and continued or walk through Barcelona. Drinking in the streets is a new thing for the both of us and I have to say it makes seeing a city a bit more entertaining. We finished our drinks and then called it a night.

Earlier in the trip we had talked about possibly going to Ibiza for a few days. Well the next morning we dedicaded some time to try and make this a realtiy. With the ferry right next to our hostel we thought it would be as easy as simply walking over, paying for a ferry ticket and then catching an overnight ferry the next day. We got up to the counter and quickly realized that our dreams of dancing with glow sticks to techno till 9 in the morning may not be an option. It turns out that most ferry companies do not run ferries to Ibiza on Sundays. We tried every ferry company in the area, checked out plane tickets online, and even thought we could ask some local Spaniard fishermen to motor us over on their morning fish. So now 3 hours later we had accepted deffeat and slowly began our tour through Barcelona.

Armed with our detailed outline of what to see, thanks to Caitlin, we headed for Sagrada Familia. Sean and I had both have been to cathedrals in the past, but this one was like nothing either of us had ever seen. The building of the cathedral started in 1882 and still continues to this day. The main arechtect was a man named Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi saw designing and building in a very different way then anyone prior to him. His idea was to have a cathedral that would be passed down from genertaion to generation, with each group contributing to their own part of the cathedral. At first we were puzzeled by this because when you look at the structer half of it looks over a 100 years old and the another part looks like its brand new. Either way, still to this day the builders are following the designs left by Gaudi and it is currently under construction. We paied the 2 euro to go the the top of the cathedral to get a better view of the city. The views were great, as well as the view of the cathedral. There are large colorful porcilan scupltures at the top of each tower and unbelievable stain glass windows everywhere. The journey down was also pretty interesting. From what I understand the hallways and stair cases are not designed for a burrly man like Sean. Walking through these cramped hallways and terrifingly steep spyrail stair cases really got our hearts racing. We were shaking and had sweaty palms when we finally got to the bottom. The cathedral was amazing, it was visually stunning as well as fun to venture to the top. We both agreed that we would hope to come back when the cathedral is done in its interty.

The next stop for us was the Parc Guell, yet another Gaudi original. Gaudi was litteraly the one designer and archetect behind most of Barcelona, everywhere you look you see things that resemble his unique style. He is one of the only reason why Barcelona is such a visually amazing palce, it is the only city of its kind that I can think of. We walked through the park and saw some more interesting designs of Gaudi. In the center point of the park there is a series of benches, all of which have porcelin designs on them. Each one hand made by none other than Gaudi. Underneither this center area there is a massive room full of coloums and a ceiling that is all blue procilin. It was like nothing I had ever seen.

After a full day of sight seeing Sean and I finished off our day with a dip at the beach. The beaches in Barcelona were a mix between the jean shorts and blowouts of WildWood NJ and the boardwalk in OC Maryland. Once again there were vendors everywhere walking around trying to sell just about anything. We got ourselves a few beers and relaxed in the fading hours of the day.

After a full day in Barcelona we had one thing on our minds, enjoying the legendary night life of Barcelona. We walked the main drag again and asked a few club promoters what a good place for two young Americans would be. Everyone we spoke to had the same response, "honestly I would not come to our place tonight because everyone is going to be at Sonar." We quickly asked around and found out that Sonar is not just another club, it is a music festival that happens ever year in Barcelona and has been going on for the past 15 years. We just so happened to be there the weekend of it. We did some quick research and found out that it was a techno dj festival that close to 60000 people travel into the city to come see, a mecca for techno fans. Knowning not a single dj or band that was playing we decided that it was yet another opportunity to get a real taste of European culture.