I am finally back home, back home to London that is. It has been an eventful 10 days that was simply amazing. I am going to break my blog up into parts, one that I will do tonight and one that I will do tomorrow because if I were to try and tell you about the whole trip it would take me way to long. So first I will write about Barcelona.
It all started on last Thursday when we headed to Luton Airport on our way to see Barcelona. It is always a long day of travelling from central London to any airport. Anyways, after a long day of travelling we arrived and then took a bus into the city but we were completely lost. So far, we have been able to ask for help, but having not taken a Spanish class in 2 years, I was a little rusty to say the least. We were told in very broken English that we should watch our stuff because it was a sketchy part of town. So, we were planning on meeting up with Louie but we did not and we just found our way to our hotel.
The next day, Louie had class and we couldn't meet up with him until a little later so we decided to eat lunch on the beach. It was about a 10 minute walk from the hotel and we arrived to this...
After lunch we decided to head into the city center of Barcelona and again, the language played a barrier because we got all sorts of lost and in the end, Louie came to our rescue. We meet up with him and it was a beautiful day so a bunch of his friends were down on the beach playing volleyball. He took us for a walk all through Barcelona and it was a lot of fun to chat with him. The picture below is in Plaza de Espana and it is an old palace but turned into a huge museum. If you look closely there is a fountain in front which we would visit later.
On our walk to the beach we walked down Las Rambas, which is a street that is very long and I compare it to Covent Gardens with lots of little restaurants and street performers. Here are a couple of good ones.
We finally reached the beach which was beautiful. This is where we meet up with Anna who was in from Madrid for the weekend.
AFter the beach we headed to Louie's dorm so he could change and then decided to go out for Tapas, a common snack before you eat a really late dinner. It was very fun to learn about the traditions of a different country.
At night we headed to the magic fountain where a very cool performance is put on every night. This is what I was talking about earlier.
There are also all sorts of water falls in front of the old palace. It was very cool. There was a street vendor selling a local beer of Spain called Estrella and we bought a 4 pack for the four of us and we sat and watched a intriguing fountain show. After that we headed home only to get up and head right back into the city on Saturday. We headed to Park Guell, which is a famous park designed by Gaudi and it was quite the adventure. Gaudi has a very unique style of design and here are some pictures to show what the park kind of looks like. It is not by any means what a park looks like when we say "park" in the US.
After seeing much of Park Guell with Louie and Anna, all four of us headed off the trail to a mountain which Louie had been on before. We climbed, and we climbed and we climbed with a lot of complaining straight up this "mountain". We eventually reached the top and it was an incredibly view of the city. It was a prelude to something that was later to come.
This shows Tibidaba, a church located at the highest part of Barcelona. More to come on this.
We made it! I am dripping sweat in shorts and a t shirt while everyone else was cold. Nothing new.
After our mountain climb we headed over to Carlota's house, who is Louie and Anna's friend. It was nice to meet her and we decided to head back to Louie's so I could shower before we went out. Anna and Carlota made a typical Spanish dinner for all of us and we had dinner in her house which was great. We had some drinks there before we went out for the night.
Sunday we went back into the city center to meet up with Louie and at this time Anna had to head for the airport to catch her flight back to Madrid. We spent the day walking around the city and he was going to show us Tibidabo but it ended up being closed on Sunday so we all decided to head out to the beach near our hotel and have a late dinner. We went to bed early because it was a late night before. Monday was our last day in Barcelona and we made the most of it.
Louie had class in the morning so we decided to head to Sagrada Familia but the line was literally 3 blocks long and we head someone saying it took over 3 hours to get through the line. So we didn't go in and took lots of pictures. Here our some the pictures we took from the outside.
This is the front of the church. It almost looks like it is melting, but that is all detail. It is unlike anything you have ever seen before. The front(this picture) depicts the entire Nativity scene from the Angel Gabriel and Mary to the Birth of Jesus.
A picture of the side of the church. If you look carefully, you can see the two different tones of the church. It has taken over 100 years to build because it costs so much that it was to wait for more revenue then build then wait and etc...
The back of the church which depicts the Resurrection of Christ. A lot different mood than the front.
This is just showing the detail of the church.
The whole church.
I suggest reading about this church online. It is something special.
We meet up with Louie and he took us to Tibidabo, which is the highest point in Barcelona. On top of the mountain there is the Sacred Heart church and is about 2000 feet above sea level. Here is a picture of the church.
You have to take a cable car up the mountain and it brings you to this point. You then climb and make your way to Jesus' feet. It is way up there. Once you make it there, it is like nothing you have ever seen.
A view from Jesus' feet.
The city of Barcelona.
This was going to be the last thing we did, but Louie forced us to go back to see the inside of Sagrada Familia. So, we did and it was totally worth it. Here are some of the pictures of the inside.
Its all like white marble and the stain glass is beautiful. There is so much symbolism in the church that it is almost too much to comprehend. Gaudi also designed this and it was by far the most intricate detail I have seen in any Cathedral I have been in.
After that we headed home and had a late dinner before packing and heading to Rome for the next couple of days. I want to thank Louie and Anna because without them we would probably still be stuck in our hotel looking up how to ask where the airport was in Spanish. It is simply amazing how good Louie has gotten at Spanish and he was one hell of a guide. He is coming to London in a couple weeks and I have to start making a list of things to do so I can try and compare to the luxury he provided us.
Anyways, feels good to be home, back in London. Crazy how adapted I am to London that I can comfortably call it home.
More to come later.
Cheers
Jimmy
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