Day 3 in Barcelona

Hola!

Yea, day three and the extent of my Spanish remains "yo quiero taco bell."

We had an amazing day today. At one point, Ashley turned to Amy and me and said, "Let´s just treat this like the `Amazing Race´." I think that accurately describes how we tried to power through our sites today. We woke up later than we wanted to (hey, it is our vacation after all) got ready and took the tour bus again. Barcelona was sunny and warm and it was such a wonderful way to start the day off. We rode the bus until we got to Gaudi´s Sagrada Familia. It is one of the most famous monuments in Barcelona. It is an amazing church that began construction in 1883. Gaudi spent 40 years of his life working on it, and died before it was finished. There is still major work being done on it today. It was magnificent. I mean really breathtaking. I overheard one woman say, "It´s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." Although I´m not ready to make that commitment, I will say that it was quite the experience standing at the foot of such an impressive monument. We took so many pictures, but there´s no way to accurately capture it. At first glance it looks like it was created out of melting wax. The intricate detailing made it hard to take the whole thing in. I could have spent hours looking at each little scene on the sides of the church. The three facades represent Christ´s life- the nativity, the passion and the glory. We only were able to see the nativity and the passion. We walked around inside and took an elevator up to one of the spires. From there we could move from spire to spire. (I´m not sure that´s really the correct termanology, but for lack of a better word, spire will be used). It was a spectagular view of Barcelona but Ashley and I were nervous that high up. We took a lot of pictures that I can´t wait to post. The tour guide had said that it was easy to see Gaudi´s religous fevor due to his work on the church- its true. The incredible attention to detail did make it easy to see the passion motivating him to create such a masterpiece.

After the Sagrada Familia we hopped back on the bus and headed to Gaudi´s Park Guëll.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi again- I´m writing the rest of this post Tues morning. We only get 30 min on the computer at a time and there was a line waiting for it after me yesterday. So let me continue the story. Just thought I should tell you because I plan on writing about last night and didn´t want to confuse people.

The park was awesome. It was an gorgeous day and the park was buzzing with people. I really like Gaudi´s work and the park was a cool place to hang out. Very beautiful. Instead of struggling to describe it, just know pictures will be on their way once we´re back in Aix. We basked in the sun (short sleeve weather), people watched and met some Americans on vacation from NY. (We could tell right away they were from the east coast.) *To the St. Louis bunch- it was a bunch of aunts and cousins and they were calling their Grandma on the cell phone. I definitely thought of all of you. :-)We checked out the Casa Museu which is located in the park. It was a house was built under Gaudi´s direction but by Gaudi´s assistant. Gaudi lived in the house for 20 years and the museum had Gaudi´s furniture (especially many pieces he himself designed) as well as sketchings of his for his many projects. The museum also housed works done by artists that had been associated with Gaudi.

After the park we headed back to the bus and took it around the town until it finally reached our hostel. It was starting to get a little chilly- especially because its windy sitting on top of a bus. The sun started to set and Amy and Ashley went inside the bus to stay warm. Motivated by the fact that I may never see Barcelona again, I stuck it out on the top of the bus as long as possible. Although I was FREEZING it was worth it. I got some great panoramic views of the city. After the bus finally came back to our hostel (the first stop on the tour is literally three steps in front of our hostel-how perfect is that) it occured to us that we only ate one meal that whole day. It was like we were reminded of how hungry we were cause we weren´t paying attention. Suddenly with hunger that can only be described as ravenous we LITERALLY ran to a food joint. Prior to our tribal food hunting run, there was debate for where to go. When we got to the food area of town, we still couldn´t decide. Spanish fast food? Slightly sketch and we didn´t know what to order. Pitas? Again, not looking that good. We finally saw Subway and a decision was unanmiously made. BEFORE I GET COMMENTS ABOUT HOW I NEED TO EXPERIENCE SPAINISH CULTURE MORE FULLY know that we had a Spanish meal the first time and plan on eating many Spanish feasts in Seville. We just don´t have the time in Barcelona.

We ate our food, chilled at the hostel and then started getting ready to go out. We went to the square where Tarantos- the flaminco bar from the first night- was located. The Spanish really like to live up the whole night. It was already 12ish when we went out and the club scene wasn´t happening yet. We decided to wait out some time at an Irish pub. We met a cute young couple from Ohio who we talked with for a long time. They had both studied abroad so we were sharing our opinions of the experience. It was a chill way to start the night, but the Americans wanted the full Barcelona experience so after the pub we hit up the club we could find with the longest line. It wasn´t a bad wait and it was SO WORTH IT! It was a great club- the girls danced it up. We also met some guys who lived in Seville. I turned on the tourist mode when I found out and had them copy down places to check out in Seville on a napkin. There were three guys total- two from Seville and one of their British friends. The Brit and one of the guys were heading back to Seville and offered to show us the city. We got their number and might call them when we get there. It was funny talking to them. The British guy told us that we had cool American accents. haha The Spaniards were fun too- I told them the few phrases I knew in Spanish and planned to use habitually throughout my trip. One of which is Feliz Navidad. They cracked up and told me that I probably should´t walk around Spain wishing everyone a merry Christmas.

All in all, I´m in love with Barcelona and living it up. We have some ambitious plans for today... I´m hoping we do well. Much love- hope to post again tonight.