Wanderlust: A day in Barcelona

When is the next blog post coming? We miss your hilarious and wise words! We keep pressing refresh but all we can see is Isaac Hanson, and to be honest that post wasn't even very good! Tell us about Barcelona!!!

I get it, You love reading about my exciting and depressing and wonderful travels, which seem to keep being attempted-ruined by Isaac fucking Hanson and his conspiracies with pickpockets and banks and cardigan thieves. Okay, okay, you can all calm down, I get it. I heave heard your cries and here I am.

Look see? here I am.

Today was a very, very, good day (I can hear you all breathing a sigh of relief, thank you). I won't even bother to tell you about yesterday because it was another dumb day. I had the flu (Isaac's fault), and the only benefit was that I discovered that in Spain the smallest dosage of paracetamol you can buy is one gram, and the book 'The Descendants' is way better than the movie, even though I can't help but still be attracted to George Clooney.

Today I woke up early, took all the paracetamol that Spain had to offer (the Spaniards don't believe in liver damage) and ate a very healthy breakfast. You see, I am trying to healthify my body, because I am beginning to think there must be some correlation between my week in France (which we could also call "croissant and wine week") and my feeling like crap. After my fruity grainy wholemeal-y breakfast, I embarked on Barcelona.

Yes, that's right. I finally left the house before 11am.

Barcelona has such incredible architecture. Every street is beautiful, and I spent hours just wandering through the streets. There are areas that are modern and built up like any city, though unique and so different to any city I have been to- mainly because of the wide streets and massive pedestrian strips and bike lanes. Barcelona has approximately 100 miles of bicycle lanes!

Beside the modern/business district style areas, there are amazing winding alleyways that literally go on for hours. I wandered into the Barri Gotic - the Gothic Quarter, and couldn't find my way out for about two hours, but I was so happy in there. The Barri Gotic is where the 'old town' was situated. Many buildings in this area date back to medieval times, and some even as far back as when the Romans first came to do their conquering (uh, sorry, re-arranging) thing. There is still a part of the wall that used to surround the city, as well as an amazing church called Santa Maria Del Pi, which translates as 'St Mary of the Pine Tree', and yes, that's a name for the Virgin Mary, and no, I don't know why.

In the pine tree cathedral

In the Gothic

Now, here's a thing; I don't know if this is a commonly known fact, but it wasn't known to me. So I am going to pretend that you are all as shocked as me while I tell you this. Santa Maria Del Pi is guarded by geese. GEESE. As in... big, white, duck-like things that go "honk honk".... It makes sense if you think about it, really. If one of them was chasing me and honking, and trying to bite and flapping its big ugly wings at me... I would most definitely be getting the hell outta there.

Yeah you better run.

As well as old, old stuff, and a church with geese, the Barri Gotic also has shops. Many, many shops. I bought clothes, souvenirs, postcards, food and coffee, and... more clothes.. I even bought jeans. I haven't bought a pair of jeans in at least five years.

See, even though they make my legs look like a leg of ham, I bought them. WINNING!

On the other side of town, are two of the most beautiful pieces of architecture I have ever seen in my entire life. No, scrap that, THE two most amazing. And they are both designed by the same man, Antoni Gaudi, a man who I have in the last two days, become incredibly inspired by and in awe of. Park Guell, and Sagrada Familia.

Park Guell was commissioned by some English Count (named Count Guell), who liked the idea of the Garden City Movement which was beginning to take off in England. He wanted a town of luxury homes, surrounded by beautiful gardens, and he wanted Gaudi to design it all.

However, the housing project didn't really take off, and Park Guell is not a Garden City at all. Gaudi's designs began but his houses were never built, because nobody wanted to buy them. Idiots.
Park Guell is a huge, beautiful labyrinth of sculpture and nature, twisting and curving together like a wonderland. I walked through Park Guell for around four hours.

Entrance to Park Guell

Lizard dude

So beautiful

Tiling in Gaudi's Garden- where Gaudi lived

Beautiful long curved bench

Near the top of the park there was a long strip of path lined with street merchants. Each merchant had either a piece cloth with I <3 Barcelona magnets or little statues of various landmarks, or an umbrella with jewellery cleverly hung from it. At about two o'clock today, there were about forty of these street merchants in the area where I was standing. I was beside an American woman and we were looking at some jewellery on one of these umbrellas (she thought all the earrings were 'real neat'). Suddenly our merchant started yelling at us...
"Quick quick! you must be quick!"
Real neat girl and I exchanged a look, and put down the jewellery we were holding. Before we could say anything more, there was a loud yell from about 50 metres away that sounded something like "whoop whoop whoop!!" then I heard someone say 'policia!' and then everything went batshit crazy.

In a matter of about 10 seconds, every single merchant was up and out of there. By the time I registered what was going on, all I could see was the backs of forty little merchants, scurrying up the hill one after another with sacks of souvenirs on their backs and umbrellas down their pants.
It was incredible. Real neat girl and I looked at each other and just started laughing hysterically.

Barcelona from Park Guell

Sagrada Familia is a huge and amazing cathedral, when I saw it, I literally gasped. Construction began in 1882, and is still underway 110 years later. The photos I took do not do it justice, nor do any that I have been able to find. This is truly a building that you need to see in person. I sort of regret not going inside, though there were literally thousands of other tourists there, and it was a bit overwhelming. That said, I might go back tomorrow.