Barcelona is a Gaudi City

Oh goodness Oh goodness.

On Thursday we woke at a reasonable hour for our complementary free breakfast. It was worth every cent we paid...

From the hostel we set off in search of bicycles upon which we would see the crazy architecture of Barcelona. Here's us in action:




Biking was so much fun! There weren't really any designated lanes for biking so instead we rode on the sides of the busy streets, which is so exciting. I really felt like a part of this bustling city as I sped through intersections and past cars. Sure, it's a bit dangerous and maybe somewhat reckless, but these word are synonymous with adventure, and that's what really counts.

Barcelona is full of buildings designed by Spanish and Catalan architect Antionia Gaudi. His works generally have unusual organic and wavy forms and he periodically used detailed colorful mosaics as part of the facade or other decoration. Basically, he's about as crazy as any other Spaniard. I, of course, mean crazy in a positive sense, as in: creative, unique, awesome, and going beyond the norm. Basically, the kind of "crazy" I aspire too.

I have been told that all Spaniard are a little crazy. I should like to test this hypothesis.

Anyway, we biked around to see a number of his urban works.

The Casa Milà:




Casa Batlló (I think):




This Church was designed by Gaudi's mentor:


It was closed for Mass when we showed up, unfortunately.

The most prominent of Gaudi's buildings in Barcelona is "La Sagrada Familia", a cathedral and symbol of Barcelona along the lines of the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State building. As cathedrals go it is pretty interesting looking:



By the way, it is, in fact, still under construction. Construction began in 1882 and is scheduled for completion in 2026, 100 years after Gaudi's death. In terms of construction time it definitely joining the ranks of other European cathedrals.


1882!




From what I'm told, when completed the cathedral will have 12 of these towers, each one representing one Apostle, around an even larger central tower.




Look at the fruit on the tips there! Apparently that's typical Gaudi.

The cathedral is laid out like a cross and has three prominent thematic facades with sculptures. The oldest facade, Nativity, was constructed during Gaudi's lifetime and under his supervision. The first picture up above is the nativity facade. The Glory facade is still under construction but the Passion facade is pretty well finished. Check out some details below.



The Ascension:





The sculptures on this Facade were done after Gaudi's death by an architect with a slightly different vision and aesthetic. This side is somewhat controversial among the Gaudi purists.

From there we rode our bikes uphill to check out the city from a distance.



I found a cactus!



And here's the group, triumphant atop the ridge. You can see La Sagrada Familia between my and Mang-git's heads.



And off again, to another Gaudi highlight in town, Park Güell. Here's the entrance:









All over this park were these wonderfully colorful and detailed mosaics like the ones in the ceiling here:



I cannot imagine how hard it must have been to oversee the construction of something like this. Everything is so artistic and painstakingly detailed and there is no way that he did it all on his own. That says to me that he had a construction team that he could trust to stick to his vision and his aesthetic. With all the stress I've had in the past with small team projects I can't imagine constructing something like this without dying of a stress heart attack.





I read later on that this little guy got bashed in by some hoodlums in 2007 and had to have it's head reconstructed:





We rode back to our hostel from there, making a stop along the way to eat a late lunch. I really enjoyed the ride back because we were riding downhill through town. So fast!

With the time we had left on our bike rental we rode over to the beach to hang out for an hour or so. I didn't take any pictures of the beach, which was really stupid in hindsight. Oh well.

The water was really cold, being early May, but we still jumped in. Thank goodness it was sunny.


Later that evening we returned our bikes, showered, and met up with our friends for more tapas and Spanish wine. Here's a picture of Brad, Julie, Sarah, and I:



I think Mang-git had gone back to go to bed before this, that's why he's not in there.




This is taking so much longer than I wanted, sorry about that. I have so many more great Barcelona pictures and stories still to share, so stay tuned.

¡Vamos a España!

I’m going to do something different here for a bit, something so radical it will knock the socks and shoes off of all of you who have been following my blog until now (And I hear there are quite a few of you). Not really though.

What I’m actually going to do is skip a few weeks and blog for a bit about my recent trip to Spain. I really really liked what I saw along Spain’s northeastern coast and, after suggestion from my mom, I’ve decided to write about it while it’s still fresh. ¡Vamos!

Mang-git and I had been discussing this Spanish excursion since probably January when Mang-git had first proposed his visit. Because Brad has been in and out of Barcelona since he got to Spain in mid-February, we figured we had a really great opportunity to visit friends and explore Spain before us. I will quickly clarify that Brad is studying abroad for the semester in Spain, in a town called Zaragoza. Zaragoza is several hours outside of Barcelona; Brad does not live in Barcelona. He did, however, know where to stay and what to do while there.

Back to the story.

After working with my schedule, Brad’s schedule, and Ryanair’s flight schedule, we decide to leave for Spain last Wednesday, the 6th. Ryanair is this fairly cheap European airline from Ireland that just recently started service out of Bavaria. Ryanain is wonderfully cheap when booked in advance and accomplishes its low prices partially by flying out of little airports well outside of major cities. In our case, flying from Munich to Barcelona, we were actually flying from Memmingin to Girona, which requires a little bit of additional travel to and from these little airports and the cities. As a result, we ended up leaving my room at 8:00 for a 12:10 flight.

Everything went according to plan and after a train ride, two bus rides, and a slightly delayed plane ride we found ourselves in Barcelona’s Estacion del Nord bus station. From there we walked southeasterly, or something, toward the center of town and our hostel. We walked through Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf. Look:



I didn't actually take the above picture; I forgot to.

Apparently Triumphal Arches are really common here in Europe. You probably know the one in Paris but I think we have one in Munich too.

The path from there wound through Barcelona’s older Gothic Quarter with its narrow streets, shops, and 5-story buildings. This portion of the city had a distinct charm to it that has since made me a big fan of Barcelona and of most of what I saw of Spain. It all feels very human, very worn and inhabited without being really dirty or full of trash. And it was normally seemed really relaxed. I can’t say I’ve really ever gotten the same feeling here in Munich; this in Barcelona was something unique. Here’s what it looked like at least:






We had arrived in town at around 6:00 but still needed to wait for Brad to show up, at around 7:45, so we went off to the harbor to walk around for a bit.

Eventually we discover Brad.

Off to the hostel then we went, with Brad in tow. The hostel was a few blocks away from “La Rambla”, an open drag through Barcelona full of street performers, restaurants and shops. This road was always full of people and is fairly central in the city and thus was a pretty good place to have stayed near.

We discovered at check-in that the hostel only had beds for us on Wednesday and Thursday night because of the crowds descending on the town starting Friday for a Formula 1 race. Brad had stayed here before and liked it and it seemed like a nice place to Mang-git and I so we decided to book the two of the three nights we intended to stay in town and figure things out later. I’ve got a story about later but you’ll have to wait until later when I write the post about later. We took our stuff up to our room and set off in a hurry to catch a Flamenco show in town.

Flamenco is really rhythmic and really intense. The show lasted only about a half of an hour but everyone looked exhausted by the end, especially the dancer. On top of that she only danced for half of the show. I was really really impressed with it all, from the intensity and passion of the singer to the rhythm and talent of the bass and regular guitarists to the coordination and speed of the dancer. Captivating. This is the best I could do for pictures:






Still reeling and very impressed we left the Flamenco joint hungry to find some Tapas.

From my days as a Spanish-learner I had always heard about Tapas and about how much Miguel likes to meet his friend at the Tapas Bar (¡aquí escuchamos!) but I had never before tried them. My old Spanish book did not steer me wrong here; they were tasty. We found a nice little place to sit outside a restaurant in a small plaza and had a dinner-esque meal of Spanish wine, Spanish cheese, bread covered in tomato and oil and baked, Foie Gras(probably not exactly real because such animal cruelty is only legal in France), and tortilla. Let me pause for a moment and point out that a Spanish tortilla is kind of like a potato omelette, but thicker, and not, as you might imagine, a flat circular wrapping made of flour which is applied before the tin foil around your Chipotle Burrito. Apparently Brad lives off of these things because all “hole in the wall” restaurants around him make them extremely cheap and they are quite filling. You can even get a tortilla sandwich.

After Tapas we returned to the hostel to try and decide on our next activities. We met our roommates, two girls from French-Canada, who were very surprised to see three guys walk into what they had been told was a “female only” dorm room. They took the surprise very well, thankfully, and we ended up spending a fair amount of time with them in the next few days adventuring around the city. We met a few other French-Canadians and some French people, but nobody was really up to doing much that evening. Only Sarah and Julie, the two girls from our room came out with us on our evening adventure.

We decided it would be really cool to go down to the beach and just hang out by the Mediterranean for a bit before we went to bed for the night. The beaches were a bit far so we ended up walking for a good chunk of time along the port and through the streets. Every night in Barcelona the streets are filled with solitary vendors trying to make a few Euros by holding out a six pack of beer to anyone who walks by and saying “¿Cerveca?”, meaning “beer?” in hopes of making a sale. Later in the evening some of these guys switch to selling samosas. They’re really nothing to be afraid of and will simply leave you alone if you say “No, gracias”.

The beach was nothing to rave about, but it was nice to sit in the sand listening and watching waves crash on the shore. Brad had the sudden impulse to go swimming; no one else followed. Barcelona is still a bit cold during the nights in May.



We went to bed that night satisfied with our first and definitely successful day of adventure in Spain.

I’m gonna take a break for now and get back to the next days when I get the chance. This is turning out to be quite a chunk of text here, but I do want to capture as much of this trip as I can since, like I said earlier, I really enjoyed it. In fact, it may have been my best trip since arriving here in Europe.

When Spain is wrapped up I will have to jump back to Dachau, mountain climbing with Brad and Mang-git, Prague, BMW Welt, Bayern Abend, May Pole Raising, Frühlingsfest, classes and related difficulties, painting Blane, Charlotte and the other new Germans, MVV’s silly bureaucracy, and all the other things I can’t remember at the moment. This list is mostly for my sake so I can remember what to cover. Stay tuned anyway!

Nymphernburg

Good Evening!

I'm trying to catch up, I really am, but things just keep coming up; I can't help it! Anyway, on to Tuesday.

Originally, Brad and I planned to go to Dachau on Tuesday but my friend Lauren wanted to come as well, so we postponed it until Wednesday (the next blog installment!).

With plans altered we headed down to Marienplatz in the latter half of Tuesday morning to have a good old-fashioned Bavarian breakfast. I had decided to walk over to "Augustiner am Dom", which is right by the Frauenkirche from the last post. We brought Sam too.

I've had bits and pieces of the whole meal, but never everything all at once. The traditional Bavarian breakfast consists of Weißwurst, Weißbier, big Pretzels, and sweet-mustard. It's all a very delicious and very filling breakfast, on par with eggs, bacon, and pancakes for how full and slow you feel afterwards. Brad really liked it.

On our way to breakfast we also got a chance to see the Glockenspiel at the Rathaus. It's definitely chalked up to be more than it is, but it was cute in a "kitschy" sort of way. It mostly consists of painted figures moving in circles or spinning.

We saw this too:



Makes me want to find one of Cleveland's sister cities.

Enough build-up, it's time for the main event: we went to see Schloß Nymphenburg, the summer palace of the now-gone Bavarian royalty.



To get there we walked along the various canals spanning out from the Schloß into this very residential part of the city. Idyllic.

The canals eventually reach the ponds in front of the palace:



And the front:



Inside was pretty nice. Not too big, but big enough to be royal and very well decorated.







I definitely think that the Residez museum is better (see ), at least inside, but the palace was still very beautiful and, unlike the Residenz, completely untouched by bombing. There weren't any informational plaques either, which was too bad. You'd have to buy an audioguide instead.

The best part, in my opinion, of the palace is not the building itself so much as the gardens around it, which alternated between Versailles-esqe cultivation and Metroparks forest. Take a look!









It's hard to tell from this picture but I these forests really seemed old and mysterious to me, like in a fairy tale. The trees seemed to intertwine with each other and form a natural wall along the lake shore like some distant and curious forbidden barrier. Not like an American forest, not quite as stark and much more gentle.



Scattered around in the garden-park were Royal Bathhouses, Party Halls, and Hunting "Lodges". A lodge, of course means, two rooms that look as if they came from the palace. Look look!



This one has some Chinese stylings to it, because the nobility at the time had this weird obsession with Asia. And porcelain.

And a few others:





There were a lot of statues like that in the more manicured part of the garden, the part directly behind the palace.

I can't remember what else we did on Tuesday. It wasn't much, but I thought it would be worth noting.

That's all I've got for the moment. Stay tuned for Dachau next. Unfortunately, I think covering the concentration camp in a blog entry may take a lot longer than usual, so I apologize in advance.

All the best!