B-BAR-BARC-BARCE--BARCELONA!!!

DAY ONE: The trip started with a train to Pisa where we caught this Ryan Air flight to the awkward-not-actually-close-to-Barcelona airport. But the bugle call upon landing was appreciated! And it was time to put on my Espanol  thinking cap, trying to recall however many years of it I had at Chartiers Valley, plus two years at West A HS.

We took a bus into town and began to wonder. The presence of a triumphal arch made it relatively easy.

It imminently became clear that this city would be pretty awesome.

Lady liberty decided to make an appearance. (There is another lady liberty inside the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. My goal should be to find all the lady liberties in Europe before I actually go to NYC)

We decided we would go to the sea near where our hostel was. There was a lot of cool sights along the way.

One building seemed important we peeked in and realized it was big. Must have been a train station, we supposed. And then we walked through the next door into this space. Two gynormous steel arches that curved along with the tracks.

We finally made it to the beach (but struggled to find the hostel.)

Looking down the other direction. Lots of pretty sights on this beach. Note the crazy geometric building. We would desire to walk towards it later.

This is a seashell I plucked out of the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia Beach. Figured I would give it a dip in the Mediterranean. It's been missing its natural habitat.

Once we were done chilling, wading, and skipping stuff in the sea, we decided with a train, plane, and bus ride, plus already walking long distances, we were hungry. We had lunch at this place on the sea, and tried this typical Spanish drink called Sangria. Good stuff.

And as mentioned earlier, we had no set agenda. So we walked toward that crazy shaped thing that we had no idea what it was. It turned out to be this giant thing over this lowered plaza. It was much more porous than we would have thought it was from a distance. (We did not know this in Barcelona, but apparently it was designed by our buddy Frank (Gehry).)

Next on our arbitrary agenda was to walk to the Sagrada Familia church. It looked like only a few blocks on the map. The problem is that we underestimated the size of the city blocks. It was a hike. But there were some cool scenes on the way. Like this one!

And... There it is! Antoni Gaudi's famous design, that has been under construction for over a hundred years. I think the most recent finish date I've heard was 2030... Anyway we sat town on a bench. In the time Ben and Alicia took to get a souvenir, Aaron and myself would sketch the place. I was quite satisfied with the result. (I'll probably have a sketch post on the blog at a later date.)

We then walked around to the other side of the church. The sunlight made it pretty.

We looked on the trip adviser app and one highly rated thing was Flamenco music at a place called "Jazz Si". It was nine euro to get in. But that included a free beer. (a local brand.) This place was pretty small. But it was jam packed. A person occupied almost any place possible. A US fire marshal would have thrown a fit. And the crowd was insane. By insane I meant silent. A focused silent. You could tell the people were passionate about their music. Occasionally there would be "Ole!" or something of the sort yelled in exclamation of enjoyment, but people near me were still talking from a break into one of the songs and all I heard was a communication in the tongue of our country "Shut the f*** up." Gosh darnit Americans.. But the music was phenomenal. So complex and technical, yet free and musical. Aaron is actually a guitar player, and he seemed blown away by what we heard. The singer had almost a middle eastern sound (at least to my American ears.) The sound he made, and the facial and bodily contortions he made while singing seemed so passionate. And the other dude kept rhythm, by tap dancing and clapping. It was unreal.

On the way home, we heard some blues musician jamming on his guitar jamming down in a metro station. Aaron told me to 'scout it out' and I happily agreed. Alone down in this metro tunnel (all my friends could still see me but were not close), a few kids about our age showed up. They seemed like pleasant fellows. well groomed Europeans in their bubble jackets. Asked me if I was from the UK. "No, Estados Unidos de America." And they kept talking about futbol, FC Barcelona, and stuff. My espanol wasn't good enough to catch everything. A few wanted hi fives or bam's. I probably confused them by saying "Bam that's the bam, bam that's another one" (Reference to Willie the Walmart greeter remix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_jRgv-UqBU) They kept going on about football and started doing imaginary moves near me. I replied "Si, yo quiero football". The one got next to me with his dancing soccer moves. And closer. And I felt his hand near my pocket and I swiftly turned to the one side, foiling their juvenile attempt. They quickly disappeared after their failure, my friends above me saw what happened as well. I felt unusually smug that I avoided their silly pickpocket attempt.

But regardless, it was stuck in my head the whole walk back to the hostel. Would have I done something different again. Scream for the Policia? Instead of a dodge move, would I counter move and pin the jolly fellow against the wall? Or just yell "Es mi dinero, no es tu dinero!"? What if their silly trick was successful? But I still felt good on how easy it was to dodge their petty theft attempt.....
END DAY ONE.

DAY TWO: Our hostel lobby was under construction. It seemed pretty iffy at first. But the guy was friendly, but knew little to no engligh, but his espanol was fairly easy to understand. He took us around the corner up to a bedroom adjacent to where he lives. It had six beds, but the four of us had it to ourselves this weekend. And the location was pretty awesome. This is a view from the tiny balcony off of the kitchen area. Not too shabby at all.

This is the interior of the cathedral in Barcelona, the old gothic part of town. And this church is by far the most pure gothic example I have seen on my journey so far. In my Italian art class, my professor says that gothic architecture is all about height and light. This church had both. And the modern lighting, along with natural, was absolutely beautiful. (Especially the modern lighting.)

Here is the apse. So amazing, light from the stained glass with the artificial lighting. It's like seeing HDR in real life.

Here is a view with the light settings on my camera changed.

As we continued to walk through that part of town we heard "la Bamba" being played by this guy on a harp. It sounded great and he had a nice groove.

And we stumbled on this parade. It mainly consisted of these big funny looking people. Like giant puppets. There were also marching groups with percussion. They all played these really funny instruments that looked like an oboe and recorder had a baby, and had a sound like a cross between oboe and bagpipe. The tuning was certainly iffy.

We then decided we wanted to see the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe. Which was a good distance from us. So we looked at a map and walked in a general direction of thattaway, which incidentally took us to this hill, with some pretty cool views.

This is the starting point for a cable car that goes to that tower all the way over there.

Looking down to where we were on the beach yesterday.

Sagrada Familia in the distance.

As it turns out, our path took us past the Olympic complex. Barcelona hosted the summer Olympics in 1992.

My first stadium panorama in Europe! This place had to be pretty cool back in the day. (It is actually still used. Many times it is a concert venue for huge acts.)

I thought it was really cool that we were in a former Olympic stadium while current Olympic events were being held elsewhere.

This cantilever overhang was pretty impressive. So big!

Another panorama, just in case.

Seemed like a decent place for a group photo. (Thank you Senor security guard!) Alicia, Aaron, Ben, and myself.

Cool abstract antenna!

They created quite a progression towards the Olympic stadium. It just kept getting bigger and bigger as we went on. (I had a few photos up the middle like this, but for some reason, my favorite was this one with people walking up the side of the reflecting pool.

This isn't the same progression to the Olympic stadium, though it is impressive. This is one that leads to a museum.

This museum!

Adjacent to that area was the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe. It is actually the German Pavilion designed for the 1929 worlds fair which was held in Barcelona. It is one of the most famous examples of modern architecture... This view is paricularly interesting because that wall directly ahead separates the left from the right. But from where I was standing, it appears as if it is all the same space. The play of space and light is what really makes this design stunning.

From the previous photo, you can turn around and see that statue, which is located off center in a reflecting pool. It serves as the indirect focal point of the pavilion, directing circulation.

This is around the other side of that reflecting pool, where the carpeted meeting space is located. The lighting was pretty awesome in here, with various diffusion of sunlight through different shades of glass, the strong green marble, and warm onyx walls, plus the reflective nature of the white painted ceiling. It made the place very nice just to wonder around, relax, and enjoy. 

The famous Barcelona chair design.

Too bad we were not allowed to sit in them.

Aaron sat outside the pavilion and made a sketch. Alicia had to wait while the architects were taking way too much time geeking out.

Reflective green surface. You cannot see through it, but it does allow light into the interior. Pretty nifty.

Shaded glass in the rear. It's all about space, light, and materiality.

Amazing how such simple elements can be used in such an effective way.

The three architects in the group had to get a photograph together here.

From a distance, the whole thing seems pretty long and flat.

Moving on.. We had to have seen several dozen of these signs around town. This one is near Sagrada Familia. We wanted to go inside, but were a little bit late to get a full experience, so we decided to go to an orchestra concert instead. Unfortunately we got off at the completely wrong metro station, and then had to kick it into high walking gear, or pay for another metro ticket.

But while we were power walking through the streets of Barcelona, we spotted a familiar face from back home.

The place was called "Obama British Africa". I have no clue, but I absolutely had to snap a quick photo.

We arrived at the concert hall late. And missed the first piece. But the second was pretty long, and decided it would be worth it to go in anyway. We sat in the lobby and waited for intermission to go in. The first piece ended, and the ushers rushed us in. Our seats were way at the top, but very quickly, the next piece started. But the ushers sent us up the aisle anyways. All the way up. The place was jam packed. A full house. (How did we even get tickets?) And during the piece of music, we were walking up the middle of the aisle. It was a bad situation, and I felt horrible. We were the badly under dressed Americans, making a disturbance. My head was down the entire time... But as it turns out, that was not the second piece. It was a solo piano song before intermission. I much would rather have waited and just went up during the real intermission, but the ushers sent us up anyways. Oh well... I grabbed this photo during intermission. (I didn't dare whip out my camera during the actual performance. Which was incredible by the way. Such beautiful music.

And the outside of the theatre was pretty nifty. too. Like a giant floating light wall.

Afterwards we just started wondering. This thing was equally confusing to look at in real life as it is in this photo. It is an incredibly reflective canopy.

Our wondering took us towards one of the most striking pieces in Barcelona's skyline, the Torre Agbar. It put on quite a nice light show, that begged for a long shutter speed.

There is that ridiculous reflective canopy again.

Cool abstract sculpture in the foreground now.

Ben, Alicia, and Aaron not being ridiculous, not crawling all over the ground just to find the best place to prop a point-n'-shoot camera for a night photo.

We then made our way back to the coast, which is in the general direction of our hostel.

But we stopped at a restaurant of this one guy who we had met earlier in the trip. He was definitely pushing his restaurant on us, but did so in a friendly enough manner that we decided to stop in anyway. One of his interesting stories is that he used to work for Lionel Messi. The restaurant seemed pretty nice, but he said that he would need to improve it significantly if he were ever to feel comfortable inviting Mr. Messi to dine there. Apparently he only goes to the best places. I guess that's what you have to expect from one of the best footballers in the world........
END DAY TWO

DAY THREE: With our hostel only two blocks from the sea, it only made sense to get up early to watch the sunrise. The air was quite chilly, but it was totally worth it. I'll just leave these photos here and let them speak for themselves.

Trippy wave reflections.

Barcelona was quite a large city and there was definitely some stress getting around. So this painting was appreciated. Oh and I also like that it references bikes.

We finally got to go inside the Sagrada Familia. Now I just have to throw in some context. We learned about Antoni Gaudi back in architecture history at Kent. I hated his work. I thought it looked ugly and demonic. It made absolutely no sense. I was not a Gaudi fan whatsoever... But when I arrived in Barcelona, my opinion took a huge 360 degree turn. His architecture could not have been more amazing and heavenly.

Clearly the church was a stylistic development, loosely tied to the gothic style, only with a nature-like aesthetic. One big difference I noticed was what I will call simplification of symbolic representation. Take the stained glass windows for example. In most other gothic churches, there would be some kind of biblical figure or story represented as a colorful mosaic to distract us. In Sagrada Familia, the stained glass windows did not depict anything, they just added a beautiful transition of colors.

Here is a view looking down the nave. The ceiling is insanely high The columns and vaulting are supposed to be abstractions on trees. Nature was incredibly important to Gaudi. He believed God can be seen through nature, and his architecture would reflect belief. It is an idea that actually resonates with me. The reason is that despite all the amazing architecture we've seen on various trips this semester, the most amazing things we see are not built by hand. It is always some kind of natural formation or a view.

We were there at just the right time. Sunlight was flooding into the church from the back of the nave directly on to the altar.
..... But at this point I decided I would go up towards the front, a section reserved for prayer, and do just that, along with reading a short psalm. It was then when I realized how strange the whole situation of this place was. The church will not technically be finished for about another ~15 years. And we had to pay to get in. It was quite crowded. Simultaneously that Sunday morning, mass was occurring in a lower part of the church. And everywhere around were people armed with cameras. All I heard was chatter and fake noises from camera phones. There were entire groups, each person with their camera pointed in a different direction. I was equally as guilty... But how strange was it that one of the most beautiful houses of God I had been to in Europe, whose symbolism was easy to connect with, was not being used for its intended purpose?

After I had finished my bible/prayer time, I had to whip out my camera for a quick photo of the crossing point in the ceiling. (Just to share with you all.) Note on each column, are four different oval shaped things. It represents Matthew Mark Luke & John. Gaudi didn't always directly represent things from the Bible, but when he did, it was incredibly easy to understand.

Here is a look at the crucifixion piece above the altar. 

More epic stained glass.

Let's talk about apsidal chapels. In many other churches I have been to, there is often some crazy detailed work of art, usually depicting Jesus, the virgin Mary, or some other saint, or perhaps a Giotto fresco cycle. Either way, it would be incredibly elaborate. That is not the case in Sagrada Familia. In several of the chapels were big screen TVs which played a 5 minute video explaining the church's design, from the perspective of how Antoni Gaudi connected with God. Each screen played the video in a different language. It was pretty well done and did a good job explaining why things were the way they were, in a way I understood. Other apsidal chapels were empty with the exception of what you see above. (Of course repeated in several languages.) It was so simple, but I would argue carries as much or more spiritual effectiveness as any other renaissance or baroque painting that takes significant art or biblical knowledge to understand.

We exited out of the old facade. It was full of nature, animals, and bible characters.

Like this turtle column! Cute little guy, eh?

Beneath the church was a Gaudi museum. This is how he arrived on the form of the interior nave. By hanging sandbags from string upside down.

There were three different possible designs for the interior as well. The winner was the one on the right.

Next on the Gaudi experience was to go to the north part of town to Park Guell.

Which was another crazy nature inspired designing, wrapping itself around the hillside.

And it definitely offered some cool views.

The top part of the park was not the top of the hill it was located on. But I decided I would run up to the top anyway. The climb was definitely more treacherous than any other I've done in Europe, with no clear path. But the 360 view at the top made it 1000x worth it. I'm sorry, my panorama does not do it justice.

Sagrada Familia down there.

I wasn't going to post this photo of me, but I did anyways; for only one reason; PUPPY!

These two decided to join me, arriving to the summit about two minutes after me.

That would be a nice place to play calcio/soccer/FOOTball/futbol. Or even better, ultimate frisbee.

More of Gaudi's Park Guell design.

Pretty as a flower.

At this point, we were pretty limited on time. We needed to catch a bus to the airport to catch our flight home. But we had enough time to see two more Gaudi houses very quickly. The first is called Casa Nissan. Just kidding! Casa Mila.

At least we got to see the doors and windows on the lower level, which were pretty cool.

But since we couldn't see the entire facade, I decided to talke a picture of this cigarette butt on the ground instead.

This corner was interesting. New glass around the old part. (I have no idea why it took me til now to mention this, but Barcelona is a very regular gridded city, with huge blocks, and all of the blocks are chamfered at the corners. It is an urban design thing I believe is unique to Barcelona.

Our next stop on Gaudi Day was Casa Batllo.

Which like all of Gaudi's projects, looked other worldly, in its own unique way.

Unofficially, we didn't go inside because we ran out of time on the day. Officially, we didn't go in because I thing it would have cost us 18 euro a person.

I grabbed one last photo of the house before we had to book it back to the bus station.

Back at the airport, I saw this wall art in the food court. I enjoyed the graphic style of it all, and figured it would make a much less appropriate end to this super-sized blog post than one of Antoni Gaudi's famous designs.