Barcelona-Part Dos

I mentioned Antonin Gaudi earlier. Well, here he is again. Barcelona's main site is something called La Sagradia Familia, a huge church designed by Gaudi. The three of us went to see this architectural wonder on our last day in Barcelona. There is a subway stop right outside the church and, as we emerged, I saw the line of tourists waiting to get in and thought, "shit, should have got up a little bit earlier". It was okay though, the line moved fast and within a half hour we were in. I was impressed. La Sagrada Familia is a church like nothing I have seen before. I am not going to even bother describing it. I am hoping to post some photos here a little later, and I will include some of the Sagrada. What is more amazing, is the fact that the church isn't even finished being built. Construction started in 1924, and completion is projected for 2030. Wow, must be some pretty thick red tape in Spain there.

The inside of the church wasn't as impressive as the exterior, still impressive though. It also provided me with THE comedic moment of the trip. My sister's friend, who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons, really made my day. La Sagrada Familia, folks, is obviously a church. I mean, Jesus is just hanging everywhere, there is an altar, pews, and sign that says "Quiet during services" and Hayley's friend comes up to me and, in all seriousness, asks "Is this a church"? My response was "Did you just seriously ask me that question"? She said that she wasn't sure. I'm just going to let that one sink in. For all who may go to Barcelona after reading this: Yeah, its a church.

I let the gals go off on their own for the rest of the day, and I was going to see water. The waterfront area was the only part of the city that I really hadn't seen yet, and I wanted to check it out. I enjoyed my time there. The weather held for me, which helped. Parts of the waterfront area have a real small, sea-side village feel to them and I enjoyed exploring the streets. Something neat that I encountered was the beach area. Obviously given the cooler weather there were no beach revelers, but I was able to catch site of some African immigrants making sand art. One guy had a huge dragon surrounding a castle that he was working one. He put little candles in the nostrils of the dragon for flame effect. Again, I will try to get the photos up here. I sat down along the boardwalk and watched these guys go to work with sand and listened to my iPod for a while, winding down a little bit after a long week in Spain.

I could feel myself getting back to fighting form, my mystery illness was beginning to disappear. It was good timing, Portugal was next.