We took a cab from our hotel to the Sagrada Familia. The cab driver was very stern looking, but ended up being a lot nicer than he looked!! Save for our first cab driver in Madrid, every single cab driver has been absolutely wonderful. They are warm, hardworking people, going through a rough time. The Spanish people are so fabulous, it reminds me so much of Latin America.
My jaw dropped. There it was. The church that has been under construction for over 100 years, that is just now a little over 60% done, stood there... Commanding everyone. Watching everyone. The building is half covered by scaffolds, cranes that stand as high as the towers, and construction workers that are so small compared to the building that they look like ants. Busy ants.
We had 10 am tickets, so we picked a small coffee shop with outside chairs to enjoy a hot coffee and wait for 945 before we headed in. The line of people waiting in line to buy tickets went around the corner. Thanks to ticketmaster, I already had our tickets and we walked straight to the front door. We picked up our audio guides, then into the now front door and to the right, to the tower of the passion. Sixty five meters up the tower. 420 steps. We took the elevator and I was stunned by the view, and the fact that you can actually stand on these TINY balconies! They look like the can't hold you, but they can! The day was extremely smoggy and cloudy, so the view wasn't as amazing as it could have been, but it was still amazing. One feels so small when one sees these views.
We walked down the steps all the way down to the main entrance. I can't even explain the goosebumps. They never left me. I had a few tears at a couple of different moments of our walk through of the basilica. I can't even imagine how Gaudi came up with these ideas, the nature of his inspiration being, well, nature... He built towers inspired by wheat, crosses inspired by seeds, columns inspired by forests... It's just too much. We walked the Sagrada Familia for almost three hours, marveled at the models, sat in front of the altar and just looked. No cameras but our eyes. This man wanted you to walk in there and feel the marvel of god. One can't escape it. It's everywhere. And the church is not even finished. The nickname Gods architect is very fitting.
After the church, and almost 300 pictures, we left. We took a second cab to Parc Guell. This cab driver was hilarious, and told us that his wife's philosophy is that "the only way to happiness is ignorance," and that instead of turning on the news and watching politicians lie, murders, fires, etc, they watch soap operas at night... At least they know its fake and they don't have to worry about anything. It cracked me up.
Parc Guell is exactly the same way I remembered it, but now I got to see more of it. We walked it another two hours. We climbed to one of the highest points, marveled at the vegetation, the views, and the architecture of the many buildings contained in this mini city. We walked down back to the city, and then reluctantly took the metro back to our hotel - my dad gave no reason besides "we need to go to Carrefour so we can leave early tomorrow". I can't believe we wasted the late afternoon in Barcelona so that he could go buy bread. I returned to the hotel. I was too pissed off. I went to my room and picked up my ipad so I could load my pictures. I ran out of memory on my ipad!!! Oops!!
We went to dinner at a hole in the wall restaurants that the front desk girl recommended. We had loads of food, cava and ended dinner with crema Catalana! Yum!
Tomorrow we are off to France, bonsoir!!!!!!
Bisoux, bisoux
bee
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