BARCELONA!!!

So again it’s been awhile. As you can see writing blogs is not one of my favorite things to do. But I want all of you to be able to keep up to date on what I am doing here.
I’m two weekends behind and I must catch up! On the 3rd of March Shannon and I, and our friend Ashley traveled to Barcelona. We only gave ourselves 3 days to discover this huge city. Our schedule was packed full! Day one we explored the main street which is called Las Ramblas. It is one long street that runs from the center plaza to the sea. It is full of street performers, pet markets, cafes, and plenty of tourists. So we did the tourist thing and took pictures with some of the live statues and just took in the atmosphere. Also on Las Ramblas there is a huge outdoor market, like the farmers market. So we went in there and checked out all of the stands and bought food for dinner. Then we headed to the statue of Christopher Columbus. We went up to the top and got a beautiful view of the city. After that we tried to go up to this place on a hill that would give us another view of the city but it turns out it was closed so we found a park and ate our picnic dinner from the market. That night we went out and ended up meeting a couple of guys from the city (actually one was from France but he had lived in Barcelona for a while) and they gave us a mini tour of the Gothic Neighborhood. It was really neat because we saw some things that we would have never seen or known on our own. Such as this small little plaza that has a church in it. During the civil war the plaza was used as an execution sight and you can see the bullet holes in the side walls of the church. It was slightly disturbing but very fascinating at the same time.
The next day we headed to Park Guell which is full of Gaudi’s famous work. There is a tunnel shaped like a wave, and a salamander statue to name a few. After the Park we headed across town to see another one of Gaudi’s famous works, La Sagrada Familia. It is a church that is still in the works today, it is expected to be finished by the mid-21st century so it looks like I will be making a trip back to Barcelona because it is a magnificent piece of work. It is like something you have never seen before, it is so hard to describe. Gaudi was really into mosaic work so you see a lot of that. He was also into taking images from nature and turning them into his architecture forms, hence the wave tunnel, salamander fountain, and then inside the church the columns look like tree trunks with the branches cut off. He was so creative.
That night we went to a very traditional Catlonian restaurant and had some amazing food and wine from the region. It was really good, but more expensive then we wanted it to be, however it is all part of the experience. After dinner we met up with the guys from the night before. They took us to a really small typical bar of Barcelona and we had a drink called Leche de Pantera which is translated to Panther Milk. It was really good! It was milk, gin or rum (you can use either) and sugar. Then you put it into a small shot glass and put cinnamon on top of it. It was amazing! We wanted to get home somewhat "early" that night because we had a lot to do the next day. So we left the guys at about 3:15 to try and find a taxi. That was almost impossible. We had to walk down the whole length of Las Ramblas (which is 1000 meters long) and at the end of that we found a line for taxis that we then had to wait in for 45 minutes. We in absolute amazement that there were so many people out on the streets at 4 in the morning that we couldn’t even get a taxi at the busiest plaza in the middle of Barcelona. Spaniards are CRAZY!!!!
So the next day was Sunday and Shannon’s guide book let us know about this traditional Catalonian dance that is performed in front of the Cathedral on Sundays. So we went and watched that. It was so cute because it was mostly elderly people with their special shoes on dancing in a circle holding hands. Then there was also an orchestra providing the music. After that we went to mass inside the Cathedral…which was packed because it is such a tourist spot and if you go on Sundays you don’t have to pay to enter. But it was so grand and beautiful. Also there is a central patio to the cathedral where one can find palm trees and geese. It was a very odd juxtaposition. Unfortunately for us the skies decided to open up and pour down rain upon us so we weren’t able to finish our plans for the day which was to explore the Gothic Neighborhood (during the day). So we decided to head for the airport. Luckily for us we gave ourselves plenty of time because somehow we got on the wrong train and ended up going 45 minutes outside of Barcelona. Once we realized it there was nothing we could do but race against time to get back to the airport to catch our flight. Once the train made it to the airport we started running…I don’t think that I have ever had to do that. Once we got to the counter I went straight to the front and asked a guy if we could go in front of him because we were so late. He was nice and let us do it and we were able to check in one minute before the cut off time. However we still had to run from the counter to the gate because they were like on opposite sides of the airport…go figure! We did make it home though! So that was my whirlwind trip in Barcelona!

Soo...the reason that I don´t like blogging so much is because it takes so long to upload the photos...so I have decided to start an actual photo website that is a lot easier...so right now there is a Barcelona album on it. And here is the website http://community.webshots.com/user/madmorepics so now you can check here for the pictures and there will be a lot more!!