I keep wanting to abbreviate Barcelona. Four syllables are way too many to pronounce so often. However, I have been informed that you may not abbreviate Barcelona as Barca. Barca is one of the city’s two soccer teams (futbol here). Barca [pronounced bar-suh] is also amongst the world’s top teams, if not the best. Technically the season has just started so we don’t really know yet. Messi is one of the team’s stars (the guy I saw in airport, remember?) Well I now own one of his jerseys! (…Along with the rest of Barcelona). Right, well back to abbreviating Barcelona… Barcelona, since we can’t say Barca is abbreviated as BCN. This is also their airport code. But three syllables is easier than four, right? My point being…BCN will now be Barcelona because Barcelona takes forever to type out. B…a…r…c…e…l…o…n…a. It’s like forever.
Content, Teka, content. I last wrote of my wanderings around the city on Sunday. Well I have definitely gotten lost at least twice since then. Getting lost is fairly normal, since it seems to happen about every 1/3 times I go anywhere. It’s one of those things you take for granted, just like knowing how to order food. Yeah, barely know how to do either of those things here.
Monday was a long day of class. And oh, yeah, my birthday! It involved a lot of facebook messages (thank you all!), chai tea, a scarf and an ice cream cake. My senora didn’t feel well so we didn’t go to the Mexican restaurant. Rain check. Turning 22 was fairly uneventful. But then most recent birthdays have been. Other than that most of the day was spent either in class or doing homework.
Yesterday I visited the Sangrada Familia, by Antoni Guadi. It was fascinating. The light quality alone was worth the 12 euros. These photos can only partly do it justice. I also paid the extra 3 euros to take the lift up in one of the towers. SUPER scary!!!! You get dropped off at the top, and kind of just have to walk out onto a narrow bridge. That gives you this wonderful view of Barcelona….
But then you start to realize just how high you are. I am scared of heights. So this was kind of bad. Ha ha. But then you walk over the bridge to the other tower. Then you walk down (I have no idea how many) flights of stairs. But not normal stairs. These are in no way up to code. They are about a foot and a half wide. And make a narrow spiral. I basically just held onto the railing the whole way down. But occasionally I would get up the courage to look out a window. Then realize how ill proportioned the windows were to keep my body inside. And get scared again and continue down. All too quickly I was on the ground floor. It was scary—but so wonderful!!!! Gaudi definitely knew what he was doing and deserves his reputation. Below the church is a museum, as well as the crypt where Guadi is buried.
The narrow, endless spiral staircase that continues on and on...
The modernist facade, after Gaudi's death.
The nativity facade, a complex art nouveau sculpture.
The interior. The light quality and properties are just phenomenal!!
Last image, and barely captures the space. Gaudi definitely deserves his reputation!
After this harrowing experience, I went and tried to figure out my studio stuff—illustrator won’t work… : ( Alas! No luck! I have since solved the problem by buying adobe…Ugh. I also had another Castellers practice, since Saturday’s competition was cancelled from the rain. I was the only one who showed up. This was actually kind of nice because this time we didn’t all stand around only talking to each other. I helped support almost every tower. (This mostly involves squishing yourself in with 30 other people and putting your body against their, in a very deliberate formation.) It even got to where the leader, el jefe asked my name and specifically assigned me a spot. I met a couple people, including a guy who told me that a bunch of the people my age go out on Fridays after for dinner/drinks and maybe to a fiesta. We talked about skiing, all in Spanish, of course. It was really fun. But the biggest thing I learned was that Castellers practice was regular and I was invited to join! So every Tuesday and Friday I have practice. This is not only fun, but also nice to know I am actually going to be seeing people more than just one time! It makes it much easier to make friends! Not bad for just three weeks! I’ll let you know how it goes!
Just got some exciting news, I have been asked to blog about my Castellers experience for CIEE (the program I’m here through)!!! It should be fun! Wait! I forgot an important part of Tuesday!!! I had an interview for my internship with some architects. They are awesome!! And I start Tuesday, even though I got lost and ended up being 15 minutes late….But yay!!! So my classes are finally finalized!! (I’m in studio now and should probably start working…) Ta ta!!
***You can view all of my photos of Spain on flickr, just click the link below!***
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