Helloo.
So I went to Barcelona last weekend with a couple friends. Took lots of pictures, obviously.
We left on Saturday morning really early and went to a Barcelona soccer game later that day. The game was actually kind of horrible-- Barcelona did not play well at all-- but it was still really fun to experience it and all. They lost to Málaga, 1-0.
Hello.
This is the section of crazy crazy fans that start all the chants and everything.. Seriously, it reminded me of our high school sports games on a huge (HUGE) scale: These people were constantly waving flags, making noise, being rowdy, and then the rest of the crowd would follow along if they started a chant. It was pretty cool.
Piqué
Worst part of soccer by far.. Someone trips over a blade of grass and the game stops for five minutes because he's rolling on the ground in clearly very excruciating pain. COME ON.
Neymar
Camp Nou
Gift shop after the game.. Imagine how much this club makes in just one day. It's seriously amazing.
On the second morning we got up at 6:30 in the morning to go see the sunset on the beach. A little bit of a stressful experience trying to get there since we left a little late and basically had to sprint to the beach to make sure we didn't miss it, but definitely worth it. The clouds were so, so cool and looked like big white mountains.
So pretty
:)))
So close..
The boardwalk. Fun fact: Barcelona's beach is actually man-made, created before the '92 Olympics for tourists.
Marina.. So many beautiful and huge sailboats.
Cool street art seen on the walk home
One of Gaudí's famous houses on Passeig de Grácia. Don't the windows kind of look like skull eyes?
And this is the other one.
Cool fountain
I LOVE these things. I really wanted to get one when I went to Barcelona over Christmas, and I really wanted to get one this time, too, but I just don't really think they'd travel well. I'll have to make one for myself at home.. So cool though. Who wouldn't want a mini mug magnet with a mini cactus in it?
Just building a casual human tower.
One of the days, everyone else went to La Sagrada Familia and I went to to the Palau de la Música since I had already been to Sagrada. It was really cool and beautiful, and also really impressive to hear the history of it. It was built in 1891, during the Industrial Revolution in Catalonia (It was so strange to hear those words in Spain.. Obviously we learned about the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. but nothing like that ever happened in Andalusia, so they just don't talk about stuff like that here. But anyway.), and was built all on donations from people (costing just 6000 euros). On top of that, the building was finished in three years, a really short amount of time for a building of such detail. The tour guide told us that they did that by doing most of the artisan work outside of the building while the workers built the actual structure. Pretty impressive. So these are some of the columns that are outside the windows on the second floor. Since the streets are so narrow in this part of the city, and therefore the buildings very close together, these pillars were designed to make it look like the buildings on the other side of the street are farther away.
The Palau was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner (yes I did have to Google that) around the same time as Gaudí, and they shared a similar style. You can see this in the way that he uses a lot of nature in his work, just like Gaudí does.
This is the chandelier-ish thing in the main concert hall of the Palau and is meant to be modeled after the sun (which you can see from this angle) and a drop of water (which you can see in another picture later).
These are tributes to the first women who sang in the Palau in a women's choir.
Another angle of the chandelier thing where it looks like a drop of water.
This is a building (I'm not really sure what it is.. A church? Some sort of religious institution I think) that is the first of its kind dedicated to the adoptive father of Jesus, Joseph. I had never really thought of Jesus having an adoptive father but I guess it makes sense.
We also visited Parc Güell and went into the "memorial zone" which is where most of Gaudí's famous works are.
Just hangin'.
So many people taking pictures of the famous lizard statue.. And people would get really feisty if you accidentally stepped in front of their selfie. It's a dog eat dog world.
We also, of course, went to La Boquería (Barcelona's famous market) and they had these WONDERFUL creations.
I was pretty jealous at this point.
Yum..?
Pretty popsicles
Mmmmm.
The artist behind these wonderful creations
Just an octopus on a plate.
"WHAT AH THEY SELLIN'??" @pow @jill
Omg hedgehog chocolates.. Revolutionary.
We walked down by the water and saw the monument of Christopher Columbus. I'm assuming this is Queen Isabel.
Lion whisperer
This guy just can't wait to be king.
So REGAL.
Christopher Colombus' statue.. You would think he'd be pointing toward America (logical, right?) but he's not. Just kind of pointing at something in the distance.
This seagull apparently wanted in on this pic.
Alright, that's it. Fun weekend :)
In other news.
This was the view from the Triana Bridge a couple weeks ago in the morning..
Kinda crazy, right??
Also, my mom seriously should win so many awards for this.
I shared with Elvira, my teacher, and Irene and got some pretty good feedback. Oh, and my favorite Southerner (Maddy) but she thought it was too sweet. Too sweet?? Your tea is too sweet. -_-
Ok couple things to add to the list..
Things that are different:
- The other day I saw two Americans run by in shorts and tshirts then a Spanish guy run by in leggings and jacket and hat.. Not surprising.
- At soccer games, instead of booing or shouting when the fans are mad about something (a call, something the other team did, whatever), they whistle. It's pretty impressive how loud they can whistle, too.
Things that are the same:
- They apparently have these little mini boxes of cereal here like we do at home.. Reminds me too much of camping when I was little. And everyone fighting over the Froot Loops and Lucky Charms cause it was either that or Corn Flakes and boring, un-sugarfilled ones.
Ok, that's all for now. XOXO
