Parc del Labyrint and Miscellaneous Observations

Yesterday, feeling fully recuperated from my stomach bug, I finally emerged from my bed (after three days!!) and Sarah and I headed out to Parc del Labyrint.  This park was built in the 18th century and is the oldest park in all of Barcelona.

Here are some fashionista photos... Sarah in her new jacket and new scarf!

Me in my new jacket and new boots.  Or perhaps I should rephrase that: one of my new jackets.  (The other is more springy; it is khaki and also super cute.  Wore it today, as a matter of fact!)

So this is the garden house, I suppose.  It is really gorgeous, as you can see.  Stone with ivy and blue shutters.  I think the building is pretty much abandoned now since the windows are all completely open aside from the ones which are shuttered.

 

The absolute epitome of the road less traveled: the left side is unpaved!

(Total dork, I know.)

Now for some miscellaneous photos accompanied by observations.

The babies here are pretty pampered.  State of the line strollers, matching accessories (this baby is wearing a blanket but mini sleeping bags seem to be the prevailing fashion here).

The Sagrada Familia.  Now, I promise you, this is the REAL DEAL.  I know I said in one of my earliest posts that I had stumbled upon La Sagrada Familia.  I was sorely mistaken.  This is a "stumbled upon it" photo or its equivalent.  (I knew I would be walking by it.)

  Now this one is really crazy.  This is a bullfighting arena.  Just an overview on bullfighting here.  It has never been part of Barcelona's culture and was imposed on the city during Franco's dictatorship as a sort of punishment to Catalunya for being Catalan.  (Franco hated the Catalan culture.)  So he built two arenas here (I'm pretty sure that's right) and forced bullfighting on the people.  It never caught on except for with tourists.  Now, there are only bullfights when tourists are here and Barcelona is actually in the process of banning bullfighting entirely.  The thing about this arena, though, is that the city wanted to make this arena into a shopping center and decided that they wanted to put another level underneath the arena.  Soooo they did the only logical thing and lifted the entire arena up and built another level underneath it.  ha!  Told you it was crazy!

Now, finally, the last picture for this entry.  The One.  The Only.  THE BOSS!!  (That's right, Bruce, flaunt it if you've got it!!)

People Pictures!

The past few days with my family have been really fun.  They left this morning.  But before they left, they came over to have dinner with my host family which was a lot of fun.  We also went to Parc Guell (pictures in a previous blog entry).  Here are a couple pictures:

Me and Emily.

My dad, me, Paul and Emily. 

My family here (left to right): Amelia, Sarah, Maria Dolores, me, Arman, Dana.

Eulalia

Not only is this the weekend of Carnival, it is also the holiday of Eulalia here in Barcelona.  Eulalia is the co-patron saint of Barcelona (I am getting all of this info from Wikipedia...) who was killed by Romans when she was thirteen years old because she wouldn't renounce her Christianity.  She was tortured in thirteen different ways, like rolling her down the street in a barrel studded with broken glass and crucifying her on an x-shaped cross.  To celebrate her martyrdom, there is a huge festival.  There are parades with giants like in the blog post I put up two days ago and then there are also castellers (people who build huge human towers).  We attended the celebrations today and they were amazing.

First, more giants.  These ones were even taller than yesterday's!

Festivities in the crowd.  When we first got to the plaza where the event was taking place, it was packed with people.  

A mini tower.  This was just the beginning.

Getting bigger... this was a competition so there were four or five different teams and three rounds to compete in.  Each round had more and more people involved in building the towers.

In the final round.... building the foundation.

Still going!!!  A tower is complete when a little kid climbs to the top and puts his or her hand in the air.  If the kid doesn't do that, then the tower is considered a failed tower.  Sometimes the towers crumble and everyone falls down into the crowd supporting them.  None of the towers fell today but it looked close at one point. 

Partayyyy!!!

Last night, after a very nice dinner out with my family, Dana and I arrived back at our apartment building, ready for a good night of sleep.  We opened the door to blasting music, a knight, a princess, a queen, a pokera (apparently this is a woman wearing a mask and a shirt decorated with playing cards), a king, a nurse, a Chinese girl, and an American girl.  We could not turn down this party and would not wind up sleeping for many hours.

Our family was having friends over for Carnival.  We sat down and had cava (the Catalan version of Champagne) and Sarah danced salsa with the nurse and we were entertained by ridiculous Catalan stories.  I cannot do justice to this evening with words so here are some pictures instead.

<--Sarah and Amelia before Dana and I got back.  Sarah walked into the apartment and saw Amelia sitting at the end of the table by herself so she sat next to her and, wondering where Dana was, asked her "Hey, where's Dana?"
Amelia looked at her strangely and said "It's over."
Sarah: "No, where's Dana?"
Amelia: "We did it already."
Sarah: "Dana, with the long blond hair... our roommate!!"
Amelia paused for about 20 seconds and then said "ohhhh! That's her name!!"

Also, before Dana and I got back, the adults put on some sort of play with lots of sexual innuendos.  (Throughout the night, our host family was trying to protect our pure minds but their friends insisted on corrupting us.)  To the right you can see the pokera, the king, and the back of our host dad the knight.

Our host parents.  How cute!!  They kept on playing all of these songs and saying how romantic and sweet they were.  As the songs would play, they would explain the meanings to us very solemnly.  Then they played We Will Rock You and started banging on the table.  They took out more cava and finally, they played Born to Be Wild and the party really began!!!

Sexy nurse took Sarah by the hand and demanded salsa music.  The pokera told Amelia to tell the boys in her class that she was available and that she has everything they could ever want: big boobs and a sizable bum!  And then sexy nurse really cut loose...

The pokera just did not know what to make of the situation!!  Definitely the best start to Valentines Day EVER!!!!

Many successes!

Yesterday was a VERY successful day.  After countless hours of searching for the PJFS (Perfect Jacket from Spain), Sarah found it and bought it!  It is very cute!  I don't have any pictures of it yet but I will point it out in a picture sometime soon.

Two days ago, as I was putting on my favorite brown boots ever (so much my favorites that I wear them almost every day) when it came to my attention that the zipper pull was coming off of the zipper track.  Let me just pay homage to these boots for a minute: I bought them last year.  They are deep chocolate brown with brass buckles and go to about three inches under my knee.  They make me look like I am going to go horseback riding (something I don't do but it's a nice look) and I love them.  I wore them all of last winter and all of this fall/early winter. They are waterproof.  In short, the perfect boots.

Now that that homage is done, I will inform you, dear reader, that I did not waste time with sentimentality.  No.  I had to be practical.  So I decided to get new boots.  A word about shoe shopping here: I have never seen so many shoe stores before in my life.  Rows and rows of boots.  Fantastic.  Except I have not allowed myself to look because I already have a lot of shoes. 

Yesterday after class, Sarah and I set off to find my new boots.  We stopped into one of the million shoe stores and I selected some brown boots (very similar to my all-time favorites but with snaps instead of buckles, rounded tops, slightly more pointed toe, and go to just under my knee) and asked, in Spanish to try them on.  I put them on and thought that maybe they made my feet look big (I will acknowledge that my feet are indeed quite large).  I attempted to explain this hesitation to the shopkeeper in Spanish but I slipped and said "mi feet miran muy larga" using the English word for feet rather than the Spanish one.  And that shopkeeper pounced... the battle was on!

He started speaking in English.  I was insisting on Spanish.  He started talking about how he had studied in San Diego.  In Spanish, I said that that is a really pretty place.  And he replied in English.  And so on... a battle of the languages.  This happens pretty often because everyone wants to practice their other languages.  I lost this battle.  I did not know the word for cash when I was trying to ask him if he preferred I use cash or a credit card. (Now I know that "en efectivo" is how you'd say "in cash.")

Last night, Sarah and I decided to go out to a bar near our apartment.  We weren't sure where to go when we saw that the place we were planning on going to was closing.  But we knew of a crazy little place called Kahala (a Hawaiian Bar).  We settled in amongst the cigarette smoke, locals singing English songs, and our tropical drinks.

These drinks were huge, very sweet, and very expensive.  Plus they started to make our stomachs hurt.  But the snacks were good (popped soy beans and popcorn).

My dad, Emily and Paul arrived today.  I met them at their hotel this morning and then we went to the Picasso Museum.  Up until last weekend, I had only seen Picasso's later pieces (Blue Period and cubism) but last weekend, at Montserrat, I saw one of his early pieces which was a classical portrait he did when he was only fourteen.  The Picasso Museum is really cool because you can see his whole progression as an artist.  He starts off very traditionally, following in the footsteps of his father who was associated with an art school.  Then he develops his own style.  He goes through doing prints, oil paints, the Blue Period, and cubism. 

When we were walking to the museum, we saw a parade going by.  It's Carnival here and it's also a special Barcelona holiday (I don't remember which one).

People put those huge head/torso/dress costumes on.  They are attached to some kind of frame so they can be switched between people easily.  Then the people wearing the costumes dance around and it looks kind of creepy.  Masks freak me out in general and gigantic creatures with masks are definitely worse.

Dreary, dreary day

This has been one of the dreariest days since I've been in Barcelona.  It is about 45 degrees which isn't too, too cold but it's been raining since yesterday.  Sarah and I have a really nice schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays, though, which was very accommodating to this nasty weather.  We have class from 9:00 until 10:30 and then not again until 5:30 so we were able to come back to our apartment and relax.

When I was in Ireland, Kristin lent me two books by Isabel Allende (Eva Luna and Daughter of Fortune).  I am hooked on these books so I was all too happy to spend the day reading.  I also bought another Dave Matthews Band cd (this is my sick obsession but my collection is almost complete!) so it was a splendid day, made possible because of the rain!

My dad, Emily and Paul are coming to visit on Saturday so I also spent some time figuring out what we would be doing while they are here.  It should work out well because I'll go with them to see a lot of the things I haven't seen yet (like La Sagrada Familia.... I thought I saw the outside of this building my first week here but I am almost certain that I was mistaken.  What a horror!  This is why I am not in architecture anymore-- I can't even discern one of the most famous buildings in the world from a more typical church!!).  Since the topic on my mind for 75% of the day is food, I also picked out restaurants for us.  I have gone out to lunch while I've been here but have yet to go out to dinner (my host family provides dinner) so I will be making up for lost time!!

Parc Guell

This weekend was beautiful: it was sunny, warm and felt like spring does back home.  Now it is rainy, dark (it's 6:35 pm so I guess it should be right now), and much cooler.  Instead of looking out the window, I'll recount my day yesterday.

Sarah, Dana (our other roommate) and I had gone out to this really cute little bar on Saturday night and since we got back late and I had to get my beauty sleep, I had to sleep in late by my standards (10 am!!).  I spent the morning doing my school work and then Sarah and I headed out to Parc Guell.  Parc Guell was designed by Gaudi.  It was originally going to be a whole housing development in a very park-like setting.  People didn't express much interest about living there so it was turned into a park instead. 

To get there, we had to take the metro across the city and then we had to go up a very steep hill to the park.  There are steps up the side of the hill but there are also escalators.  I kid you not!!  We went up about 5 escalators... built into the side of a hill!  I still can't get over this one.  I mean I was VERY happy to see those escalators since my legs were kind of sore from hiking around Montserrat the day before but STILL!  Escalators!  Going up a hill!!

The park is huge.  It covers dozens of acres overlooking the city.  You can see everything: the beach, La Sagrada Familia, the entire city.  The highlight of the park is the Serpentine Bench which is cool.  It's very windy and covered in mosaics (I'll put a picture below).  There were a lot of people in the park since it was a Sunday but most of the people were congregated around that bench.  It was loud and overwhelming so we didn't stay there for long but it seems like it would be a nice place to spend time when it's quieter.

Pictures:

Serpentine bench.

Serpentine bench from the back.

View.  You can see La Sagrada Familia (another Gaudi creation).  It's the really big building in the center of the picture.

One of the two houses actually built in the park.
















Today I went to this delicious crepe place for lunch with Sarah and some friends from my Spanish class.  It was this adorable little place and I had such a good raspberry jam and brie crepe.  They served the crepes rolled up kind of like burritos.  So good!!!

A Windy Hike

Today we took a daytrip to Montserrat.  Montserrat is a mountain (mont) which looks like it has been cut by a serrated knife (serrat).  There is a monastery which you can't go into because it is still actively used by the monks; a lot of hiking trails; a museum; and a cathedral with the Black Madonna in it (the Black Madonna darkened over time because of the type of wood or candle smoke-- one of Catalunya's patron saints though I didn't know that a woman could be a saint.  I feel strange taking pictures in places of worship and even though I still take pictures in them sometimes, I didn't here).

When we left Barcelona this morning, the wind was whipping.  Trash was flying through the air because the bags in trash cans were being overturned by the wind.  We got on the bus to Montserrat (our school organized the trip so they were charter buses) and my eyes began to close immediately.  I tried really hard to stay awake because driving out of the city is an interesting experience.

In the city, there's poverty, but outside of the city, driving through the countryside, there's rural poverty which looks different (of course, these observations are only from a distance because I've been on buses driving through the countryside).  The shacks there are on (mostly) well-maintained plots of farmland but some of the people there have still placed objects on the roofs to weigh them down and keep them on.  A lot of the houses are made out of scrap material.  Driving through the countryside, the poor housing is often more apparent than in the city.  In the city, it's easy to concentrate on the storefronts without looking up and seeing decrepit apartments.

Barcelona really isn't different from other cities.  One of those rapid transit trains cuts through the countryside behind the farmers' shacks and, in the city, huge shopping malls with expensive stores are around the corner from houses that are falling down.  These disparities exist in every city.  They are easy to overlook, though, so I always try to be aware (to bear witness, I guess, and because I want to change this situation).  That said, I couldn't help dozing off a few times on the ride.

We arrived at Montserrat and got off the bus.  The wind didn't feel like wind, it felt like a block of air was being pushed against me.  But it was such a gorgeous day and the mountain was beautiful.

This was what I saw when we first arrived.  That building is the monastery.  This is a Benedictine monastery which has been in existence for almost 1,000 years.  Forty monks still live there.

This is a view from one of the places where we were hiking.  This whole mountain was underwater at some point ages ago.  As a result, there is a mixture of large rocks, small rocks, and reddish clay.  The clay gets washed away whenever it rains so falling rocks are a big problem at Montserrat.                                                               

I think this picture is pretty cool.  This was from the highest point we got to and you can see a sanctuary on the mountain in the lower left corner.

One more picture of the mountain:

PJFS

After Christmas, the stores here start having huge sales until they sell all their winter inventory.  These sales, apparently, last into February.  They start at 10 or 15% off and are at about 75% off right now (three euro shirts! and nine euro jeans!).  Because of these sales, Sarah decided that now would be a good time for her to find a jacket (either leather or a leather-look).  Obviously I tagged along on this search for the Perfect Jacket from Spain (PJFS).

We spent two hours yesterday looking for this jacket.  We spent most of our time in Bershka which is this kind of cheap store with really cute clothes along the lines of Zara (it's owned by the same people).  However, Sarah did not find the PJFS.  (I did quite well... one bright red jacket which is perfect for wearing right now and was 65% off!-- about $23, a very springy khaki jacket, a dress, and a shirt.) 

To console Sarah because we couldn't find The Jacket, we set out on another search: chocolate con churros (xocolate amb xurros in Catalan).  We visited four stores, asking in each one whether or not they had them.  No place did.  Just as we were about to give up on this search, we found a place and got our churros.  They were pretty good but not something I'd want to eat every day.  The hot chocolate here is delicious-- it's like hot chocolate pudding.  Churros are basically fried ropes of dough. (See photo to right.)  This snack was also our reward for attending a pretty boring class which lasts until 7 pm.

So today we decided to continue the search for the PJFS.  We had our lunch from La Boqueria outside in this lovely little plaza.  Then we went to some shops.  Again, Sarah could not find the jacket and I found clothes.  We will resume our search but I will not be bringing any cash or my debit card with me this time.