Some Guadi, some markets, and far too many pictures

Alright…time for y’all to hear about Barcelona.  Um…first of all…it’s GORGEOUS!  Many people say it was their favorite city in Europe.  Although I won’t go as far as to say that's true for me as well (Prague still holds my heart,) I can see why everyone loves it.

Because we did SOOO much stuff and the parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles/other-adults-who-are-family-friends-but-I’m-friends-with-them-on-facebook want to see pictures and hear all about it, I’m dividing Barcelona up into a couple posts.  Today is all abut Old Town.  Old Town extends from about the middle of the city towards the sea.  It's where you will find the majority of touristy things and all within walking distance.

Our very first day we visited Sagrada Familia, one of Guadi’s famous works.  It’s not actually finished yet (the last ten years of his life were solely devoted to working on it) but there are plans to have the cathedral ready for service by the end of this year and the entire thing done by 2030.  So when I’m 44, I will come back to Barcelona and visit the completed cathedral.  Anyway…the thing is huge.  Nina and I, tired from a long morning of traveling, rode the metro over to the stop and exited facing the wrong way.  We actually spent a minute wondering where it could be before turning around to see this…

Oh…it’s right there if I had to guess.  Anyway we wondered around to the other side where the entrance was and waited in line (eating some gelato to pass the time.)  The building itself and it’s architecture is hard to describe...except to say that it’s very typically Guadi.  So here’s some pictures…

Attempting to get the entire building in one shot proved difficult, but Nina managed to get most of it...

The next day we wandered on down to Las Rambles.  It’s the big shopping street with tons of shops, markets, and locals dressed up as anything and everything willing to take a picture with you for one Euro.  Also they yell at you if you try to just take a picture of them without paying…whoops…

At one end is a square with some impressive architecture.  It actually reminded me a little bit of San Francisco…

On this street is also the Mercat de Boqueria…one of the largest “farmers” markets in the world.  Here you can find basically anything you have ever thought is possible to be digested…fruits and veggies, peppers, octopus, chili peppers, and cows heads.  Also strategically placed every three or four booths is a bar.  All very busy even at 10 am. It was incredible, but a little overwhelming.

Nina and I enjoyed walking down all the tiny side streets of Las Rambles.  The building were beautiful and cute and each one unique.  And of courses tons of pictures were taken…

We walked down to the other end of the street to the pier where the monument to Columbus stands.  This is where he departed from when he began his voyage to discover America.  The statue is pretty cool, crawling with tourists, and surrounded by very anatomically correct lions....

We also went there at night on another day to get some “authentic” but actually touristic Spanish food and Sangria and then run around the Pier at night getting pictures of the beautiful Barcelona Sea…

On Las Rambles we’d seen two guys dressed head to toe in orange (one outfit involved a complex orange fluffy hat with red, white, and blue flowers, and the other orange lederhosen) advertising a Sports bar playing…you guessed it…the Holland World Cup game.  Since we wanted to watch anyway, we decided to have lunch in there surrounded by the Hollish of Spain and cheering, singing, and horn blowing with every awesome play.  I even had my tiny orange, red, white, and blue bracelet to wear!  And of course we enjoyed the free beers bought for the house with our victory.  I was happy to be on Team Nederlands that day!

The next day we headed to another masterpiece of Gaudi…the Barcelona Cathedral.  Once again we got a little lost, but just like with Sagrada Familia, if you wander around eventually you’re gonna spot it on the skyline.  Of course I was stupid and forgot about it being a fully functioning church, and we weren’t allowed in because I had bare shoulders and Nina had on shorts.  I don’t feel too bad though because apparently this one is more about the outside architecture…

And finally in Old Town we wandered on over to the Arc de Triuph.  Just as impressive apparently as the French one (I’ll let you know of my opinion in a week), it was fun to walk towards taking pictures as we got closer and closer.  Oh and we were given red carnations for a flamenco festival by this lady but then she took them back after we had no one-cent coins to offer (even though we instead tried to give her a full euro.) We were pretty sure she was trying to pull something on us, but we have no idea what, seeing as we held onto our purses and checked for all our possessions when she was gone.  But the arc was still awesome…

Well…that’s the majority of Old Town.  Lots of pictures and so much to say…but hopefully that sums it up.  Tomorrow, I'm actually skipping the top ten and moving straight to…museums!!!

Word of the Day: casc antic - Old Town (Catalan)