Barcelona

I went to Barcelona this weekend and it was the best time I've had while in Europe.  Maybe it was my mindset or maybe it was the atmosphere but either way I had an amazing time and am wishing that when I wake up tomorrow my flight home will have been a nightmare and I'll still be in Equity Point Gothic hostel (Gothic neighborhood, no black and white sketchers there).  I'll start with the basics.  I planned this trip with my friends Jeff and Kelsey, but later learned that a bunch of my other friends were coming along also (Adrian...I don't want to name names).  My RyanAir flight left at 17:05 on Thursday evening (yes I skipped class).  RyanAir is the scariest plane ride you can take.  I'll try to remember to go into more detail in the blog later.  We arrived around 20:15 at our hostel and went from there.  The next three days would be too hard to detail in this opening paragraph so I will describe each day separately.  Finally, our trip ended with a nice slumber party in the Barcelona airport before our 6:00 monday flight.  I arrived back in Sevilla after taking a bus from the airport just in time to sit in my classroom for forty minutes until my 9:00 class started (the walk home back and would have taken about the same time but would have resulted in me not attending class).  It was funny having a completely stuffed backpack and yet needing to ask someone else for a sheet of paper to take notes.

Taken from my top bunk!

[RyanAir side note]

Actually, I think I'll start with a description of RyanAir and their flights.  To start off with, I was greeted at the airport by a squatting dog.  But anyway, Spanish people line up for boarding an hour before they let people on the plane.  Add that to my list of things I don't understand.  Meanwhile, airline employees were probably chilling and eating a bocadillo (sandwich) somewhere out of sight.  So after sweating about whether my bag would meet the restrictions (40x55x20cm, and 10kg), I was allowed to board.  The only cool part about this flight was that you could board the front or the back of the plane.  Once inside I noticed the extremely plasticized cabin that lacked emergency pamphlets (just a sticker on the seat), reclining seats, and any sense of comfortability.  Finding a seat next to my friends I buckled up immediately.  The look of our 20 year-old-ish flight attendants did little to ease my fears.  On take off, the plane zig-zagged across the runway going however fast a plane that is taking off goes.  I am fairly positive that the pilot was younger than me (or had muscle spasms) due to the video-game like maneuvering.  In-flight services were definitely not provided, but I did enjoy the repeated advertisement played over the intercom.  They sold smokeless cigarettes on board?  Really?  I feel like I should end this paragraph.  Our landing was a solid bounce or two off the ground followed by applause from the terrified cabin.  Where were the boos?

Well, I'll try and remember to go through everything that happened each day:

Thursday:
Flight, Arrived, put stuff in locker on my bunk "room," hung out in the common area, then went to a bar down the street and eventually a dance club.  Pretty fun stuff, except I was definitely out way too late.

Friday:
My friends and I decided to make Friday our Gaudi day.  Gaudi was a famous architect that basically owns Barcelona's heart incase you didn't already know.  First of all we set off on the metro to find the ridiculously famous Park Güell (the Güell family served as Gaudi's patron for many things).  After getting off the metro we found out that we had a San Francisco like trek ahead of us.  Come to think of it, many of the buildings in Barcelona had the San Fran stick out over the sidewalk type design.  Our hike up was simplified by the presence of escalators (not down though), I wasn't sure how dangerous this would be in the rain.  Reaching the park was an incredible feeling, for before this moment I hadn't set foot in a real park in Europe (No stinkin' plazas!).  The park environment kind of resembled Black Butte I'd say.  Definitely had a a few different plants (cacti, aloe? plants), but the dry dirt/air and the numerous pine trees brought me back for a second.  After reaching the summit and taking a few horizon/city shots, we set off to find the really cool parts of the park.  I'm not sure how to explain Gaudi's insanity, I'll let the pictures do the speaking.  After a solid two hours or more in the park we set off for what I was told was the most visited site in Europe (wait...didn't they tell me that about La Alhambra?  Damn Europeans and their pride...).

Their album was titled, "High every day"

Walk up the hill to the top

Barcelona from the top of Park Güell

Open areas are awesome!

Holding up the open areas

Crazy spiral walk way...crazy Gaudi...

Below the plaza, so much design can't fit it all in.

With the help of a nice park worker we found a closer metro station which dropped us about five blocks from La Sagrada Familia.  After making a quick detour by Guadi's Casa Mila La Pedrera (not worth 17 euros so we didn't go in) we headed to our main attraction.  By this time my mouth was drier than an American clothes drier so I bought some water that turned out to be sugar water. Oh well, it was great.  The Sagrada Familia is a church/temple/whatever that was started in the late 19th century by some architect that I don't remember and later handed over to Gaudi to complete.  Guadi worked on the incredible and massive structure, considered his unfinished masterpiece until he was run over by a tram in 1926 (seriously the most famous person in the city was run over by a tram?).  After some years of dormancy construction resumed using estimated plans.  The originals had died along with Gaudi and the Spanish Civil War.  La Sagrada Familia is now expect to be completed between 2020 and 2040.  While the temple was amazing, I found it funny that a religious building had its own gift shop built inside.  I'll let the pictures do the rest for me.

Incredible front of Sagrada Familia

Ridiculous right?

"Why is this taking so long?"

Planning/design room

Other side of la Sagrada Familia

Under Construction...yet still so cool.  Check out the spiral staircase/ramp.

Fruit at the top of a church???

Not much for the rest of Friday, went to some bar down the street and hung out for a while with some Swedish people that spoke perfect English.  If you don't speak more than two languages, you're pretty much a handicapped hostel-stayer.  This post is way too long, I'll try and fit Saturday and Sunday into one.