To Barça by Bus

This past weekend I went to Barcelona. It was rather last minute, as I was holding out hopes that my mom would make it. Unfortunately due to various circumstances she isn't here, so I went to Barcelona by myself. Because it was so last minute (like always, here, apparently?) I decided to take the bus instead of flying, because it cost about half as much. And I'm sick of hauling myself to the airport before the sun rises. So instead I went to the bus station before the sun rose. And I took an almost 8 hour bus ride on Friday to Barcelona. It wasn't too bad; I slept some, read The Glass Menagerie for my Lorca class (don't ask), slept some more. Watched the empty Spanish countryside. It's very desert-esque actually. Really dry with shrubs and wimpy trees. And mountains.

Eventually I arrived in Barcelona and figured out where the entrance to the metro was, after being thwarted by some unforeseen construction. Without really any more trouble I made it to the train station of my hostel. So I go out, and start following convenient signs for my hostel. Well, good thing those signs were there because my hostel, it turned out, was in the mountains. On google maps it looked like a short walk up the street to the hostel. Turns out that short walk up the street was actually a ten to fifteen minute steep uphill walk through the woods (but lit, at least). It was actually really pretty and smelled very fresh and, well, woodsy. After all the work to get to the hostel I decided to stay there for the night, do a little Barcelona research to get oriented, and go to bed early and get going early the next morning.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day. It was sunny and in the 70s - t-shirt weather for the first time in a month! The hostel included breakfast, so I ate there and then took the train back into the city center to go on a guided tour of Gaudí's architecture. Gaudí did some reforms to the main altar and some other parts of the cathedral in Mallorca with which I am so in love, and he did a lot of things in Barcelona, where he lived most of his life. It was really cool for me to get to see so many of the places I talked about in my Spanish presentation a month ago. We saw his only public commission, some lampposts in Plaça Reial (back to Catalan land, guys), followed by Palau (Palace) Güell, Casa Batlló, Casa Mila also known as La Pedrera (the stone quarry), and, finally, La Sagrada Familia.

La Sagrada Familia is a huge cathedral 120 years in the making and it's still not finished. Gaudí spent 43 years of his life working on it, and for the last 20 or so it was his only project. My two and a half hour walking tour probably spent at least 45 minutes walking around the very ornate outside of Sagrada Familia, as it has three facades (two of which are done) that depict the life of Jesus. The nativity facade and the passion facades are finished, the glory facade really has yet to be started and in stark contrast with the other two looks a lot like an ugly gray wall. The tour ended there and I got in line to go inside, bought a ticket and an audioguide, and then spent the next three hours walking around the entire building. I don't know what else is on my bucket list, but seeing Sagrada Familia again when it's finished is now officially on it. It's awfully beautiful for a building that's only maybe 2/3 done. Of course, some of the stained glass has been installed and that's all I really need. There's so much to say about La Sagrada Familia but pictures are really necessary. (I'm going to try reaaaallllyyy hard to get caught up on pictures today and tomorrow, somehow while I'm writing two papers.)

When I finally made myself leave - a benefit and curse of traveling alone is no one ever makes you leave things you like - I walked what was probably at least two miles (I had no sense of scale on the map I got at the hostel) to Parc Güell, also designed by Gaudí. It was nice to see some of Barcelona as I made my way to the park, which is at the top of a hill and provides a nice view of the city where I watched the sun set and wrote some postcards. Then since it was getting rather dark I decided to head back to the hostel, where I got some homework done and made some plans for Sunday.

Sunday I tried to go to mass at the parish church of La Sagrada Familia (church isn't held regularly in the basilica) but got tossed back and forth by signs pointing in opposite directions and I never found an entrance or anyone to help me. So instead I went and sat on the docks by the sea and did some writing. Then I went back to Plaça Reial for a walking tour of the old city. My tour guide's name was Gorki and he was from Bilbao, in northern Spain. He was really cheerful and funny We saw one of the oldest Gothic churches in Europe, the Jewish quarter, and a lot of tiny streets and such. Half an hour into the tour, though, it started to rain. And it didn't stop. Sometimes it let up, and if we walked close to the walls under balconies, we stayed pretty dry. (My water proof not-quite-Leather jacket helped.) We made it through about 2/3 of the tour before our guide gave up after we tried to wait out the storm inside a building for 20 minutes.

On my own I went to see Santa Maria del Mar, a famous church that was really pretty, and then I went in search of lunch. I found the café that Alejandro had recommended to me, Bosque de los Hades, Forest of the Fairies (which is kind of like Rainforest Cafe but less aggressive and prettier) but they didn't really have much real food so I kept looking and ended up eating at a little place close to where the walking tours started, which was organic or something but cheap. I got a crepe with apples, cinnamon, and almond, and a cappuccino to warm up. (I spent the day walking around in wet shoes. No fun.)

After lunch I headed to the Picasso Museum, which is free after 3 on Sundays. I waited in a line probably as long as a New York avenue block, but it moved pretty fast and I had time to enjoy the museum before my night plans. It was really interesting to see the evolution of Picasso's style, although I saw a lot of it out of order because the floor plan of the museum is really confusing. I wish I had had more time there, but I had a little subway trouble getting there and I wanted to leave myself plenty of time after because I had exciting plans for the evening.

Sunday night I went to see a musical called Cop de Rock which is Catalan for "Time of Rock." It's a musical of 80s Catalan classic rock, I think basically their equivalent of Rock of Ages. I had an AMAZING time. I only understood like every tenth word of the dialogue, because Catalan is more like a combination of Portuguese and French than it is related to Spanish, but I followed the whole story. And the music was great, and everyone in the audience was really into it. The choreography was probably the most enjoyable part, as it was a bizarre mix of West Side Story meets Elvis meets contemporary hip hop plus a little bit of stereotypical 80s rock star posing. I bought the cheapest seats (and got a discount for being under 25) but was able to move a lot closer once the show started, so I had a pretty good seat, and had a blast. I've now seen theatre in three languages I don't understand.

After the show I headed to the bus station a little early just to make sure I knew how to get there and had time to eat something and whatnot before heading back to Madrid. Our bus left at 11pm and I had the misfortune of sitting in front of the only unhappy baby on the bus. It didn't help that my iPod battery was almost dead because I had been counting on an outlet to plug it into on the bus, since I'd had one on the way there, and there weren't any on this otherwise-identical bus. I did get some sleep off and on, and eventually made it back to Madrid around 7 am, before sunrise. I took the metro home and slept happily in my bed for a few hours before getting up to go to class.

And that was Barcelona! A really fun couple of days. So glad I decided to go, but I still really wish my mom could have been there. She would have loved how colorful it is.

This weekend I'm going to Roma! So excited for lots of gelato, pizza, and pasta, the Coliseum, hopefully some Opera, so much art...

Tomorrow if I have time I'm going to write more about my Spanish family, with whom I am totally in love. I also realized I never talked about Columbus Day, and last week I took a day trip to Toledo, so there's still much to report!