Keith: "WTF man? It's like 8 in the morning. Why are you up?"
Eric: "It's 12:30."
Keith
Eric had gotten a text from Mindy around 11:30 asking if we were functional yet. Thinking she'd probably taken off, we called anyway and found out she was still at the hotel (Joel and Anisha had taken off to see some stuff she wasn't interested in). Eric said he wanted to make a point of seeing La Segrada Familia, a church being built in Barcelona that's supposed to be an architectural wonder. Cool, let's get cleaned up and head that way.
After a brief detour because I can't read subway signs correctly, we reached the place and all I can say on first impression is "Wow." A little background: La Segrada Familia is a church being built in Barcelona since the late 1800s. Its original architect is a man by the name of Antoni Gaudi who evolved entirely new styles of art and architecture. La Segrada Familia was essentially his last project and he did not keep many blueprints (the last original was destroyed in the Spanish Revolution). Still, the core idea of his design is still being followed. The church is to be the largest in Barcelona with its towers reaching the highest points of the city so that all incoming merchants will gaze upon it as the first major site of the city when they arrive. The design calls for 18 towers total - 12 for the Apostles, 4 for the Evangelists, one for the Virgin Mary and the tallest - at 170m - for Jesus. The project is set to be completed by 2030.
Back to the present: though the project is still under construction, it is still incredibly impressive. The delays on it have been largely due to funding and fighting woes, but even without those the intricacy of the design would still take decades to complete. The Western facade was most completed while Gaudi was still alive and is by far the most impressive part. The main focus is on the Nativity, but includes many other visual references to early Bible stories. We literally couldn't take it all in. Mindy even had a audio guide and most of the things it pointed out she had a hard time finding. The detail was just incredible.
The Eastern side was also very complete, though you can tell the style is very different. This facade is focused on the Cruxifiction. Here the view is much less detailed and feels much more modern. Though not as visually stimulating as the Western facade, there are still some cool features. The faces of the characters are concave, so that as you move around the front it appears as if the faces are following you (kind of like the busts in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland). The angled pillars also give a sense that you are literally ascending into the church as you walk in. It's pretty amazing.
We took the tour throughout the church and though many parts are still under construction, you definitely get a sense of the grandeur the place will give off once complete. The exhibits that show the design and development of the church are pretty interesting as well. They show how Gaudi revolutionized architectural modelling by building his arches upside-down so that gravity would achieve the perfect arch, which he could cast and turn right-side up. I had also noticed some of the tops of the smaller towers looked like fruit baskets and grapes bunches. It turns out these were intentionally part of the design to highlight the Spanish countryside. Cultural awareness, FTW!
Having fulfilled our culture quota for the day, we decided to try to spice things up a bit by finding a spot called "Museu de L'Erotica" (yes, it is what it sounds like) down on La Rambla. The guide I had said it exhibited "seeming impossible sexual positions." Seemingly? We're intrigued. Sadly, we weren't able to find it. I may have had the wrong address, though tripadvisor said you could be right in front of it and not realize it, so oh well.
We did check out another cathedral near La Rambla and did a bit more sightseeing before sitting down at a cafe for a break. We ordered a few mojitos, plus some sparking wine for Mindy, and just kind of rehashed the last week of fun. Joel and Anisha texted to let us know they were headed to a wine bar close to where we were so we figured we'd track them down in a while. To our surprise, they ended up walking right by us on their way there. Too funny. They needed to go to the restaurant where Joel had left his debit card the previous day and we had to close our tab, so we said we'd see them at the wine bar shortly.
To this point, the weather had been overcast and there had been some drizzle, but the skies had only threatened rain. That changed quickly. As soon as Joel and Anisha left, the skies opened up. Eric and I only had on jeans and polos. Mindy had a light jacket, but did have a small umbrella. Eric and I tried hopping from overhang to overhang, but were getting pretty wet. Mindy smartly flagged down a cab to take us the extra 1/2 mile we needed to go. One problem: the last 100m or so were inaccessible to car. Second problem: in the 5 mins we were in the taxi it began to friggin' POUR!
The cabbie got us as close as he could and Eric and I jumped out and ran to the side of a building looking for cover - except there was none! We literally had a 3 stooges moment, with the two of us pivoting around, not sure what to do, getting absolutely soaked and looking like total idiots. We spied a cafe across the street and darted in. The two workers looked at us with shocked looks as we stumbled in, laughing our asses off at how stupid we must have looked. Mindy decided she was going to get to the wine bar and grab Joel's umbrella to get Eric and I there. In the meantime Eric and I smartly ordered some hot drinks to warm up. Mindy returned a few mins later and we hoofed it to the bar.
The place was packed because so many people had been driven in by the rain, but the place was pretty sweet and we were able to carve out a space. We caught up with the Hutchinsons and killed a couple bottles, laughing about the craziness of the last few days. Mindy, Eric, and I had not eaten, so we crossed the plaza to a little bar-restaurant called Vascelum where we had an awesome final meal in Barcelona.
Mindy had to go because she was flying home the next day and Eric and I wanted to try to hit a club one more time. Anisha and Joel were looking to stay at the wine bar, so we bid them adieu. We got back to the hotel and said goodbye to Mindy. As we were getting changed for the night, we remembered we still didn't have a place our first night in Munich. 4 beers and 45 misn later we finally found a spot. Turns out it took so long that as we were headed out we ran into Joel and Anisha. The wine bar had closed early so they were back and interested in hanging out more. Eric and I had read about a spot called "La Terraza" near our hotel so the four of us headed out.
Unfortunately, this trek turned into an epic fail. We found the right place and the travel book we had said it would be open, but there was no one around. We found a group of workers cleaning up from some other event and they couldn't explain why it was closed. Apparently it had even been open the night before. By this time it was late, so we called it. Disappointing finish, but still an awesome city. Barcelona, FTW!
No comments:
Post a Comment